CAMBRIDGE COUNTY GEOGRAPHIES 



GLACKMANNAN 



AND 

KINROSS 








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CAMBRIDGE COUNTY GEOGRAPHIES 
SCOTLAND 

General Editor : W. Murison, M.A. 



CLACKMANNAN 

AND 

KINROSS 



CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

C. F. CLAY, Manager 

ILontJon: FETTER LANE, E.G. 

lEtimbiirgf) : loo PRINCES STREET 




i^elu gorfe : G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

JSombap. ant eTalnitta: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd. 

SToronto: J. M. DENT AND SONS, Ltd. 

erofego: THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA 



All rights reserved 



Cambridge County Geographies 

CLACKMANNAN 

AND 

KINROSS 

by 

jrP/lDAY, B.A., B.Sc. 

Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society ; 

Fellow of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society ; 

Examiner in Geography in the University of London 

With Maps, Diagrams and Illustrations 



Cambridge : 

at the University Press 

1915 






PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. 
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 



3 o 31 -^^ 



CONTENTS 

CLACKMANNANSHIRE 



PAGE 



1. County and Shire. The Origin of Clackmannan- 

shire ......... I 

2. Position. General Characteristics. Size. Boundaries 6 

3. Geology . . . . . . . . .11 

4. Surface Features . . . . . . .21 

5. Rivers , . . . . . . . -23 

6. Natural History . . . . . . .30 

7. Climate . . . . . . . . .34 

8. Agriculture . . . . . . . -39 

9. Industries and Manufactures ..... 43 
ID. Mines and Minerals ...... 47 

11. History ......... 50 

12. Architecture ........ 55 

13. Distribution of Population. Communications . . 61 

14. Administration . . . . . . .66 

15. Roll of Honour ....... 69 

16. The Chief Towns and Villages of Clackmannanshire 76 



VI 



CONTENTS 



KINROSS-SHIRE 

1. County and Shire. Origin and Administration of 

Kinross-shire ..... 

2. Position and General Characteristics 

3. Size, Shape, Boundaries and Surface Features 

4. Geology .... 

5. Natural History 

6. Climate . . . . 

7. Agriculture 

8. Industries and Manufactures 

9. Mines and Minerals 

10. Fishing .... 

11. History .... 

12. Architecture 

13. Distribution of Population. Communications 

14. Roll of Honour ..... 

15. The Chief Towns and Villages of Kinross-shire 



PAGE 

83 
85 
87 
92 
98 
100 
104 

lie 

112 
116 
132 
139 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Cross and Main Street, Clackmannan 






4 


Stirling- Street, Menstrie .... 






9 


In Alva Glen ...... 






12 


The Ochils at Alva .... 






17 


Bencleuch ...... 






22 


The Devon, above Vicar's Bridge, Dollar 






26 


Craighorn Fall, Alva .... 






33 


Waterfall in Tillicoultry Glen 






. 38 


Harviestoun Castle 






. 40 


Tillicoultry from Devon side 






44 


The docks, Alloa 






. 46 


The Silver Glen, Alva .... 






49 


Tullibody Church ..... 






53 


Castle Campbell 






57 


Clackmannan Tower .... 






59 


Alloa from the south .... 






. 65 


County Buildings, Alloa . . 






. 67 


The Jacobite Earl of Mar . 






70 


Sir Ralph Abercromby .... 






72 


Dollar Institution ...... 






78 


Kinross from Auld Kirk Tower 






86 


Benarty from the north ..... 






89 


Glen Farg ...... 






90 


A Farmstead among the Ochils 






95 


The New Cut, looking east .... 






97 


Birch woods overlooking Scotlandwell 






99 


The Well at Scotlandwell 






105 


Town Hall, Milnathort .... 






108 


Bishop Hill 






1 1 1 


An Angling Club starting from Loch Leven 


pier . 




115 


Castle Island, Loch Leven .... 






116 


The Chapel, St Serf's Island .... 






119 


Monument to the founders of the Secession Church at 


Gairney Bridge ..... 


. 


. 


124 



VIU 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Queen Mary's Tower, Lochleven Castle 
Burleigh Castle, Milnathort . 
Tullibole Castle .... 
Sculptured Stone found at Tullibole 
Curling on Loch Leven . 
Sir William Bruce .... 
Michael Bruce's Cottage at Kinnesswood 
Rumbling Bridge . . . . , 



PAGE 
125 

127 
129 

131 
132 
136 

137 
140 



28 
35 

63 

lOI 

134 



MAPS AND DIAGRAMS 

Section from King's Seat Hill to Kincardine-on-Forth 
Diagrams illustrating river " piracy " . . . . 

Graphs illustrating the mean monthly rainfall of Scotland 
Sketch map of Clackmannanshire showing the influence 
of the physical features on the lines of communica- 
tion .......... 

Rainfall map of Scotland ...... 

Sketch-map of Kinross-shire, showing the influence of the 

physical features on the lines of communication 
General diagrams . . . . . . . .142 

Orographical map Front Co'ver 

Geological map Back Conjer 

The illustrations on pp. 89, 97, 105, iii, 115, 124 are from 
photographs by Mr A. C. M'Nair ; those on pp. 4, 9, 12, 17, 22, 
26, 33, 38, 40, 44, 46, 49, 53, 57, 59, 65, 67, 78, 90, 99, 108, 
116, 125, 127, 129, 132, 137 and 140 are from photographs by 
Messrs J. Valentine & Sons; the portraits on pp. 70, 72 and 
136 are from photographs by Messrs T. R. Annan & Sons; those 
on pp. 86 and 95 are from the Guide to Kinross-shire published by 
the Kinross-shire Advertiser ; those on pp. 119 and 1 3 1 are re- 
produced by kind permission of the Society of Antiquaries of 
Scotland. 

The author wishes to acknowledge gratefully help from 
Dr William Smith and from several other gentlemen both within 
and without the counties ; he is also indebted to the well-known 
work of Messrs Macgibbon & Ross for guidance as to architectural 
features of interest. 



CLACKMANNANSHIRE 



I. County and Shire. The Origin of 
Clackmannanshire. 

For administrative purposes Great Britain is now- 
divided into a number of separate areas known as counties, 
whose boundaries are based upon older territorial divisions. 
The older divisions were, in many cases, known as shires, 
a name signifying a portion of land under the control of 
some distinct authority, and derived from Anglo-Saxon 
scir, office, charge, administration. The historical deve- 
lopment of the modern county from the ancient shire 
has not, however, been uniform ; there are counties which 
were never called shires, and there were shires which have 
not become counties, such, for example, as the Bishopshire, 
a district almost coincident with the present parish of 
Portmoak, in Kinross-shire, which was formerly church 
land under the control of the Bishop of St Andrews. 
Generally speaking, however, the Anglo-Saxon shire came 
to mean the district under the rule of an ealdorman or earl, 
a title superseded later by comes or count; hence the name 
county. Within this district there was a permanent direct 
representative of the King : the vice-comes, shire-reeve or 
sheriff. In England the course of constitutional develop- 
ment tended to increase the power of the central authority 

D. c. I 



2 CLACKMANNANSHIRJC 

and, from the time of William I, the earl or count becomes 
a titular grandee rather than a viceroy, the actual power 
passing to the royal officer, the sheriff, and later to the 
justices. In Scotland the development was different ; the 
royal power was not strong enough to prevent the great 
feudal lords from capturing the office of sheriff, which, as 
in Gascony, became in many cases hereditary in certain 
families till the abolition of all heritable jurisdictions in 

1748. 

Between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, 
and separated on the west from the rest of Scotland by 
the high barrier of the Ochils, lies the peninsula of Fife. 
Though distinctly one natural geographical region, this 
peninsula contains three counties : Fife, occupying almost 
four-fifths of the whole ; and, occupying the remaining 
portion, Clackmannan and Kinross, the two smallest 
counties of Scotland. When we remember that the 
counties of Scotland are administrative areas formed by 
historical development upon the basis of old territorial 
divisions, it seems strange that this clearly-defined penin- 
sula, anciently known by the one name of Ross, should 
have become subdivided into three counties ; nor is it 
easy to discover at what period Clackmannan first came 
to possess the status of an independent county. The area 
styled Clackmannanshire has varied in extent from time 
to time ; while, for administrative and judicial purposes, 
the shire has been united first to one and then to another 
of the adjacent counties. For parliamentary representation 
it is united with the shire of Kinross ; but, as regards the 
Sheriff's jurisdiction, though, curiously enough, Clack- 



COUNTY AND SHIRE 3 

mannan never appears in recent times to have been united 
with Fife, we find it joined with Kinross in 1807, with 
Linh'thgow in 1853, and, since 1870, with Dumbarton 
and Stirhng. Such frequent changes of jurisdiction are 
among the disadvantages which result when the ad- 
ministrative area is not coincident with a natural region ; 
and this same cause has led to the alterations in the 
county boundaries. 

Their most recent readjustment was made by the 
Boundary Commissioners in 1891. Previously the county 
contained four parishes : Alloa, Clackmannan, Dollar and 
Tillicoultry, and portions of the parishes of Logie and 
Stirling. The Clackmannan portion of Stirling parish 
was transferred to Stirlingshire. The Clackmannan 
portion of Logie parish was divided into three parts. One 
was transferred to the Stirlingshire parish of Logie ; a 
second was united with the parish of Alva, which was 
wholly given to Clackmannanshire ; while the third part 
was absorbed by the parish of Alloa. 

The county takes its name from the small town of 
Clackmannan, which, for this reason, has some claim to 
be considered the county town, though Alloa, with a 
population nine times as large, is the chief burgh and the 
administrative centre. The name Clackmannan is of 
Gaelic origin. Clachan signifies the stones, and, being 
frequently used of the stones which mark a burial ground, 
it came to signify the church, and, finally, the kirkton or 
village. Clackmannan or Clachan-Mannan is generally 
accepted as meaning the stone circle, or village, of the 
ancient district called Manann, which lay at the head of 

I — 2 



COUNTY AND SHIRE 5 

the Forth estuary. Stirling and the valleys focussed at 
Stirling were the essential parts of the district, which 
extended towards the hills to boundaries, not precisely 
known and probably always indefinite. Slamannan — 
signifying the moor of Manann — is the name of a village 
and parish some four miles south of Falkirk. What may 
be termed the "nodality" of Stirling made it more and 
more the geographical centre of the district, and so the 
greater part of Manann came to be called Stirlingshire. 



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Section from King's Seat Hill to Kincardine-on-Forth 

That part, however, which stretches between the Ochils 
and the Forth towards Fife was to a certain extent more 
secluded than the other radial carses, its western entry 
being blocked by the Abbey Craig. In the saddle between 
the Abbey Craig and the Ochils lay forests, marshes and 
lakes ; between the steep southern face of the Craig and 
the river lay but a narrow band of undrained marshy 
ground. Shut off by such obstacles from easy communi- 
cation with the rest of Manann, Clackmannan never 
became included in Stirlingshire. That it also remained 



6 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

excluded from Fife is perhaps due to somewhat similar 
obstacles on its eastern border. From the then marshy 
valley of the Devon belovi^ King's Seat Hill to Longannet 
Point on the Forth, there formerly stretched a belt of 
alternating woodland and marsh, whose position is indicated 
by Tulliallan Forest and Bogside in the Fifeshire parish 
of Tulliallan, and by The Forest in the parish of Clack- 
mannan. This small area, shut in by the Ochils, the 
Forth, the forested land and the Abbey Craig, came to be 
known as Clackmannanshire. But these natural boun- 
daries no longer delimit the county to-day. The marshes 
have been drained and the natural forests almost entirely 
cut down ; the western boundary no longer reaches to 
the Abbey Craig ; while the northern boundary extends 
so far beyond the edge of the plain as to include a hilly 
upland area almost as large as that of the low-lying ground. 
Only on the southern side is the ancient natural boundary 
yet maintained, the county still extending to, but not 
passing beyond, the river Forth. 



2. Position. General Characteristics. 
Size. Boundaries. 

Clackmannanshire is the southern threshold of the 
Fife peninsula as Newburgh is the northern. The Ochil 
range, rising to over 700 feet within a mile of the Tay 
at Newburgh, runs across the base of the peninsula to 
end abruptly in the lofty hills which overlook the valley 
of the lower Devon from Dollar to Menstrie. This 



GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 7 

continuous band of uplands presents a barrier to communi- 
cation between the Fife peninsula and the rest of Scotland. 
It is true that the Ochils are traversed near their centre 
by a road which, passing up Glen Devon, crosses the 
water-parting at a height of 750 feet above sea-level and 
follows the narrow and deep trench of Glen Eagles to 
Strathearn ; but most of the traffic prefers the easier routes 
into the peninsula, on the north side by Glen Farg or 
Newburgh, on the south side through Clackmannanshire. 
The first place up the river Forth at which a bridge for 
foot passengers has been built is at Stirling, and there, 
from all parts of the lowlands of Scotland, are focussed 
roads which pass eastwards between the steep edge of the 
Ochils and the Forth along the narrow plain of Clack- 
mannan into Fife. 

This position of Clackmannanshire as the southern 
gate of Fife has had a persistent influence on the import- 
ance and prosperity of the county ; but the influence has 
tended to diminish. An alternative means of entry into 
Fife from the south is the ferry across the Forth ; and 
from the earliest times much of the traffic, particularly 
the passenger traffic from the capital, has gone by the 
Queensferry passage. The expense and inconvenience, 
necessarily attending the change from land to water 
carriage, and the often stormy character of the Firth, 
would operate to preserve for the longer route by Stirling 
and Clackmannan a considerable share of the southern 
traffic, but, with the development of a really efficient and 
reliable ferry service, this share has become less. To-day 
a regular ferry service is maintained at four points : from 



8 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

Grantoii to Burntisland ; between the Queensferries ; at 
Kincardine ; and at Alloa. A more serious competitor 
arose with the construction of the railway bridges. The 
traffic from the south now passes into Fife mainly by the 
Forth Bridge, between which and Stirling another railway, 
from Glasgow, crosses the river to the south of Alloa. 
Thus, though the southern traffic with Fife has been 
largely diverted from the route through Clackmannanshire, 
the stream of the important western traffic with the 
peninsula still passes along the narrow gateway between 
the Ochils and the Forth. 

The position of Clackmannanshire as the southern 
threshold of Fife is, therefore, a geographical fact of 
fundamental importance and one which throws light upon 
the past history of the county and the present economic 
conditions. The most striking episodes in the history are 
connected not so much with the deeds of the inhabitants 
as with those of travellers journeying across the county ; 
legends of the passing of St Serf or stories of the fiercer 
transit of Montrose. Again, the characteristic feature of 
the shire as a thoroughfare has influenced the distribution 
of the towns and villages, strung out as they ail are in one 
or other of two long lines from west to east : Menstrie, 
Alva, Tillicoultry, and Dollar on the road to Kinross ; 
Tullibody, Alloa, and Clackmannan on the road to Dun- 
fermline (see map on p. 63). 

But the importance and prosperity of Clackmannan- 
shire are by no means entirely due to its advantageous 
position as the southern gate of the peninsula. In itself, 
the county possesses resources more considerable in value 



GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 



9 



and much greater in variety than its size would lead one 
to expect. Indeed the variety of its sources of wealth is 
a very noticeable characteristic. Within its northern 
confines more than fifteen thousand sheep pasture on the 
grass-covered slopes of the Ochils ; the rich alluvial soils 
of the Devon and Forth valleys are valuable agricultural 




"t^mK 



Stirling Street, Menstrie 



land ; the coalfields, which underlie the southern half of 
the county, provide work for more than thirteen hundred 
miners and supply a basis for the export trade of Alloa ; 
more than half the occupied women in the county are 
engaged in the prosperous woollen industry ; and minor 
industries, such as brewing and distilling, brick, cement, 
glass, and pottery works, are not lacking. Mining, 



10 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

manufacturing, agriculture, stock-raising, and commerce, 
all contribute to make Clackmannanshire, in proportion 
to its size, one of the wealthiest counties of Scotland. 

The total area of Clackmannanshire is 35,214 acres, 
or, excluding water, 34,927 acres. It is, indeed, by far 
the smallest county in the British Isles, as may be seen 
by a comparison with the smallest counties of England, 
Wales, and Ireland — London, 74,817 acres; Flint, 
163,025 acres and Carlow 221,424 acres. The average 
size of a Scottish county is 577,893 acres, or more than 
sixteen times the size of Clackmannanshire. The greatest 
length of the county from north to south is nine miles, its 
greatest breadth from west to east is nearly ten. In shape 
the shire is compact, and a circle of 4^ miles radius drawn 
from Tillicoultry as centre would include practically 
the whole area. Least of all lands though it is, the men 
of Clackmannan are proud of their home, and wherever 
counties compete — whether in cricket or in more serious 
arenas — have so acquitted themselves as to win for the 
shire the epithet of '^gallant." 

On the south-west side the county is bounded for nearly 
eleven miles by the windings of the river Forth, and this 
is the only considerable stretch where the modern boun- 
dary is a natural one ; elsewhere it is erratic, following 
neither river valley nor water-parting for more than a 
mile or so at a time, so that its course is more easily 
followed on the map than described in words. The north 
of Clackmannan is bounded by Perthshire, the east by 
Kinross and Fife, and the west by Stirlingshire. Two 
islands, Tullibody Inch and Alloa Inch, in the Forth 



GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 11 

have been detached from the mainland by the meanderings 
of the river. Both are included in Clackmannanshire, 
but only the latter is inhabited, its population at the time 
of the 191 1 Census being returned as three males and two 
females. 



3. Geology. 

From the rocks we may learn of changes of the 
physical conditions, fluctuations in the climate, and altera- 
tions in the elevation, which took place long ages before 
the advent of man. Enclosed within the rocks of some 
mountain top are found the fossilised remains of marine 
creatures, and we know that the land there, now thousands 
of feet above the sea-level, was once many fathoms be- 
neath it. In the coal seams of a deep mine are seen 
the decayed and compressed remains of vegetation which 
once throve exposed to the light and air of the surface. 
Embedded in a slab of clay is the imprint of a tropical 
palm, mute witness to a time when these islands ex- 
perienced a torrid climate ; while from the ice-smoothed 
rocks of the hill-side we learn that at another period a 
vast ice-sheet overrode the country. Stupendous changes 
are these, from ocean depth to mountain top, from tropical 
conditions to arctic — changes which can be understood 
aright only when it is remembered that many thousands 
of years went to every stage of the long history. Not by 
any violent cataclysm were the former mountains buried, 
nor was the ocean bed raised by any sudden upheaval ; 




In Alva Glen 



GEOLOGY 13 

but the alterations in elevation and the fluctuations of 
climate were perhaps as slow and imperceptible then as 
the changes now taking place are to us. It is part of the 
work of the geologist to attempt to trace the history of 
these secular changes ; and, for the accomplishment of 
this, he relies partly upon the position and character 
of the rocks now exposed, but mainly upon the kind of 
fossils they contain. From such evidence the world's 
organic history has been divided into three main stages. 
The first great period is called the Palaeozoic era, because 
it includes the earliest forms of life ; the last period is the 
Cainozoic, with the recent forms of life ; while between 
these two is the Mesozoic or middle era, though in point 
of duration the Palaeozoic era was longer than the two 
later eras together. Of course, some of the Palaeozoic 
forms are found also in Mesozoic rocks, and Mesozoic 
forms may continue into Cainozoic times ; but yet these 
three divisions are separated by periods of change relatively 
so rapid as to cause a sufficiently distinctive difference in 
the general characteristics of the organic remains of each 
division. The Mesozoic era, for example, is especially 
distinguished by the enormous and wonderful reptiles then 
existing on the land and in the sea, so that it is sometimes 
called the Age of Reptiles. These reptilian forms are 
not preserved except in rocks of Mesozoic age. But it is 
the Palaeozoic period that concerns us in studying Clack- 
mannan, for the rocks now underlying the soil of the 
county were originally laid down in that era. We can 
narrow the age of the different rocks of the Palaeozoic 
period by subdividing them into groups, named usually 



14 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

from the area where they were first studied or are best 
developed, like the Cambrian rocks of Wales, but some- 
times from the character of the rock itself, like the Old 
Red Sandstone. The following table gives the succession 
of the Palaeozoic rocks, the oldest formation being at the 
bottom of the list : 

Permian. 

Carboniferous. 

Old Red Sandstone or Devonian. 

Silurian. 

Ordovician. 

Cambrian. 

The study of the rocks is of interest not merely as 
enabling us to follow the development of organic history, 
but also because the character of the rocks now at the 
surface, their structure and position, have determined the 
present-day physical features of the land. The position 
and form of the hills and mountains of Scotland are not 
directly due to any uplifting of certain portions of the 
earth's crust, but are the result of the continuous attacks 
of rain, rivers, frost, ice, and wind. All these agents tend, 
in varying degrees of power, to wear down the land 
surface ; and, since some rocks are more easily removed, 
either by disintegration or dissolution, than others, the 
more resistant rocks remain outstanding as high ground. 
Now the stratified rocks, those which have been laid 
down under water as a sediment in layers, are, generally 
speaking, more easily disintegrated than the massive 
igneous rocks, those which have been erupted from the 



GEOLOGY 15 

heated interior of the earth. Hence, in this part of the 
country, the igneous rocks are left as hills overlooking 
the plains of the less-resistant sedimentary deposits. 

We are now in a position to attempt to trace in broad 
outline the physical history of Clackmannan. The period 
when, long ages ago, the Old Red Sandstone of the 
midland valley of Scotland was being deposited in some 
ancient inland sea or lake, was a time of volcanic activity. 
Through the floor of that sheet of water great masses of 
lava and volcanic conglomerate were ejected to spread 
over the sandstone and to be in turn themselves buried 
beneath later deposits. After numerous and varied changes 
the overlying deposits were removed by denudation, 
until to-day the volcanic masses are exposed and form 
long lines of uplands, such as the Sidlaws, the Pent- 
lands, and the Ochils. The south-west extremity of the 
Ochils occupies the northern half of Clackmannanshire ; 
and the whole character of this northern half is in marked 
contrast to the low-lying Carboniferous plain between the 
hill foot and the Forth — differing most strikingly in ele- 
vation, in scenery, in economic value, and in the density 
of habitation. The difference is the more noticeable 
since the igneous rocks do not pass gradually under the 
Carboniferous ; instead they come to an abrupt end along 
a line immediately to the north of the Menstrie-to-Dollar 
road. This important feature requires further explanation. 
The comparatively stiff outer crust of the Earth is not 
free to shrink in the same way as the rocks, presumably 
in a molten state, of the viscid interior. It can accom- 
modate itself to a smaller circumference only by being 



16 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

squeezed into ridges and troughs, or by fracture and 
dislocation ; and the attempt so to accommodate itself 
results both in slow secular upheaval and in earthquake 
and fracture. The Ochils themselves have been squeezed 
up into a broad arch, while examples of fracture and 
dislocation may be found in almost any district. Such 
fractures, called by geologists faults, may occur without 
displacement of the rocks on either side ; but, in general, 
the rocks slide along the plane of division. The length 
of the slide, or the "throw" as it is called, may vary from 
a few inches to many thousands of feet. Again, the 
horizontal extent of the fault may run for a few feet only 
or stretch for hundreds of miles. One great fault begins 
near Stirling and may be traced in a line across Clack- 
mannan a little to the north of the Menstrie-to-Dollar 
road. Beyond Dollar it appears to split into two branches. 
It is this fault that causes the igneous rocks of the Ochils 
to come to an abrupt end in a great wall ; and the rocks 
on the southern side are estimated to have been displaced 
to a depth of at least 1 0,000 feet. One might readily 
suppose that this enormous displacement was the direct 
cause of the present difference in elevation ; in other 
words, that the step-like structure resulting from the 
throw has persisted till to-day, but this has not been the 
case. Both the igneous rocks of the present hills and 
the carboniferous rocks of the modern plain were buried 
under hundreds, nay, thousands, of feet of later sedimen- 
tary deposits. These deposits have been gradually removed 
by the action of a stupendous denudation continued 
through long ages, and it is only because the Ochils are 




D. C. 



18 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

composed of the harder, more resistant igneous rocks that 
they stand to-day as a great northern wall overlooking 
and sheltering the worn-down plain of the more easily 
removable Carboniferous rocks. Nevertheless, we must 
remember that, but for the fault, the igneous rocks, and 
therefore the Ochils, would be continued further south- 
wards than they are, and neither the low plain of Clack- 
mannan nor its coalfield would be occupying their present 
position. This consideration gives weight to the con- 
tention that the great fracture was the most important 
incident in the physical history of the shire. 

Another important event must also be noted. In the 
latter part of the Cainozoic era, at a time which seems to 
have immediately preceded the advent of man, the climate 
of these latitudes was intensely cold. Britain, as far south 
as the Thames, was at one period covered by a thick 
sheet of ice just as Greenland is now. Before the advance 
of this ice-sheet from the north, the physical features of 
the country were, in general outline, much as they are 
to-day ; but the land then stood somewhat higher and had 
been sculptured by a process of long continued denudation. 
The hills had been carved into sharp ridges, bold peaks 
and rugged upper slopes, while the valleys and plains were 
covered with a thick blanket of residual waste. As the 
arctic conditions came on, the ice-sheet, gathering among 
the high hills of the north-west, pushed slowly southwards, 
sending long tongues of ice down the valleys, lapping 
round the hills, until at length it so increased m height as 
to override the whole countryside. As the heavy mass 
slowly ground its way along, it carried before it the loose 



GEOLOGY 19 

waste material of the valleys and plains, and, plucking 
away the rugged projections of the crests and sides of the 
hills, scoured and ground the bare rock to a smooth and 
polished surface. This period is called the Glacial Epoch 
or Ice Age. Eventually, with a return of more genial 
conditions, the southern portions of the great glaciers 
melted and the ice-sheet seemed to retreat northwards, 
though both the advance and retreat were intermittent 
rather than continuous. When the ice-sheet melted 
away, it left behind the masses of ground-up material 
which it had been transporting. This waste now covers 
the Carboniferous rocks of Clackmannan, and can be 
traced up the valleys of the Ochils, sometimes more than 
1000 feet above sea-level. It varies in texture, composi- 
tion and colour according to its origin. Most often it is 
a stiff clay full of boulders — hence its name of Boulder 
Clay — and fragmentary material, and sometimes containing 
lime, a soluble mineral seldom found in soils produced 
mainly by weathering. The clay is dark blue if derived 
from carbonaceous rocks ; but, if derived from the Old 
Red Sandstone, it is reddish, and loose and sandy. These 
sheets of clay are thickest on the lee side of the hills, that 
is, the side opposite to that from which the ice-sheet 
advanced. In places the Clay has been covered by 
deposits of sand and gravel, laid down, as their water-worn 
material evidences, by streams whose source may have 
been the retreating glacier. 

Since the time of the Glacial Epoch, the land surface 
has been attacked by the ordinary agents of denudation ; 
frost has been the means of loosening the exposed rocks } 



20 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

ground water, percolating through the porous strata, has 
washed away soluble minerals ; rivers, cutting trenches 
through the boulder clay, have worked over and sorted 
the material of their beds ; but the time which has 
elapsed has not been long enough to obliterate the work 
of the overriding ice. Wherever superficial deposits have 
till now covered them, rock surfaces scratched by angular 
fragments embedded in the base of the long-vanished 
moving ice may be found here and there among the 
higher ground of the Ochils. The direction in which 
such markings, or striae, run, shows that the ice moved 
over the hills in a general east-south-east course, trending 
more to the east as the lower ground was reached. Great 
boulders, called erratic blocks because they are quite 
diflFerent in character from the rocks on which they now 
rest, lie scattered over the area to which they were borne 
on the surface of the ice-sheet. One feature, however, 
of the landscape left by the Ice Age has almost vanished. 
The surface characteristic of a glaciated country is an 
irregular one ; on the higher ground, ice-scooped basins 
are found ; on the lower, depressions of various sizes and 
shapes amongst the lines of sand and gravel drift. These 
hollows became filled with water, but, of the numerous 
small lakes so formed, less than a dozen remain in the 
peninsula to-day, though several others appear in our 
older maps. Streams flowing into them have helped to 
fill them up ; the marginal marshy vegetation has crept 
in, and, dying, formed a peaty bottom, over which the 
advance has been continued. In time the sheet of water 
becomes a marsh, the marsh a peat-bog. With the need 



GEOLOGY 21 

for more arable land, the peat-bog is drained ; and, perhaps 
after the removal of the peat, the land is ploughed ; then 
nothine remains to mark the site of the lake but the black 
soil upturned by the plough, or, where the land is not 
under cultivation, the character of the vegetation. Occa- 
sionally too, such names as Myreside or Bogside help us 
to fix the site of the vanished water. The only lake in 
Clackmannan to-day is Gartmorn Dam, but this, as the 
name suggests, is of artificial origin. It was formed in 
1 700 by damming back the upper waters of a tributary of 
the Black Devon ; and, repaired and improved in later 
years, notably in 1827 and 1867, it now supplies water to 
the burgh of Alloa. 



4. Surface Features. 

From the account of the geology of the shire, we are 
prepared to find that the surface features north of the 
great fault differ absolutely from those to the south. To 
the north the land has an average elevation of more than 
1500 feet, and reaches its culminating point in Bencleuch, 
the " stony mountain," a peak, 2363 feet above sea-level, 
occupying the centre of the Clackmannanshire Ochils. 
From Bencleuch the crest line runs west by north to Blair- 
denon Hill (2072 feet), east to Whitewisp Hill (21 10 feet), 
and east by south to King's Seat Hill (21 11 feet). On 
either side of this divide, small streams, swollen into torrents 
after heavy rainfall, tumble rapidly down to join the larger 
rivers of the lower valleys. Curiously enough, they all 



22 



CLACKMANNANSHIRE 



join the same river, because the Devon, which flows 
eastward on the north side of this divide and roughly- 
parallel to it, makes a great bend beyond the eastern 
confines of the county and thus returns to pass westwards 
close along the hill foot across the breadth of Clackman- 
nanshire, receiving in its passage the waters of the streams 
which drain the southern face of the Ochils. These 




Bencleuch 



Streams have cut deep and picturesque glens amongst the 
hills ; and where the glens debouch upon the Carboniferous 
plain the towns on the Kinross road have arisen. Thus 
the Burn of Sorrow, flowing from Maddy Moss in the 
basin between Whitewisp and King's Seat Hills, after 
being joined by the Burn of Care at Castle Campbell, 
enters the Devon at Dollar ; the Dai Glen Burn, rein- 
forced by the Gannel or Gloomingside Burn, enters at 



SURFACE FEATURES 23 

Tillicoultry ; the Alva Burn at Alva ; the Menstrie 
Burn at Menstrie. Blairdenon Hill, right on the county 
boundary, is an important hydrographic centre, streams 
radiating from it in all directions. The hills themselves 
are covered v^^ith a thin soil formed of the detritus of the 
underlying igneous rock, which, indeed, is not alv^ays 
completely covered but in places protrudes in rounded 
knolls or bluff crags. 

South of the great fault is all low flat agricultural 
country. This area, triangular in shape with the apex 
pointing west, may be divided into three parts. In the 
north, occupying a belt of ground immediately below the 
Ochil edge, is the Devon valley stretching completely 
across the county. In the south, running parallel to the 
Devon valley, is that of the Black Devon. Between 
these valleys, a wedge of land of slightly higher elevation 
is pushed westwards from the Cleish Hills in Fife and, 
some 400 feet high when it crosses the county boundary, 
sinks gradually down to the general level of the plain. 
Generally speaking, sandy and gravelly drift covers the 
rocks of the Carboniferous plain, giving rise to a somewhat 
light, loamy soil. 



5. Rivers. 

A navigable part of the Forth forms the south-western 
boundary of the county. At the western border of 
Clackmannan, it has a breadth of about one furlong, 
which gradually increases as it pursues its winding course 
eastwards. At Cambus the volume of the river receives 



24 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

an addition from the Devon. Then the Forth takes a 
large bend to the south, flowing round Tullibody Inch 
and round Alloa Inch to the port of Alloa. The sinuous 
course of the river is due to the flatness of the plain over 
which it wanders. Where the gradient of a river bed is 
but slight, any small obstruction deflects its course. The 
river flows round the obstruction and the current on 
the outside of the loop is naturally swifter than that of 
the sluggish water edging, so to speak, round the inside. 
The faster the current, the greater is its carrying capacity 
and the more powerful its erosive force. The bank on 
the outside of the loop gets worn away while, on the 
inner side, the checked current will deposit some of the 
heavier material it was transporting. Thus the loop 
becomes more and more pronounced, until perhaps its 
narrowed neck is broken down in some time of flood and 
the river once more straightens its course, the detached 
portion of land forming an island in the stream. Later, 
the river ceases to use the old loop, which changes from 
river bed to marsh, and e\entually to a mere horseshoe- 
shaped depression. The island now becomes united to 
the opposite bank as if it had migrated from one side to 
the other. From Stirling to Alloa in a straight line is 
but slightly over 5i miles, yet the distance by the winding 
river is seven miles longer. Such winding loops are 
usually called "meanders," but here they are known as 
the Links of the Forth. The great agricultural value of 
the alluvial land originated the popular jingle : 

"a, crook of the Forth 
Is worth an earldom of the North." 



RIVERS 25 

Alloa itself is situated on the outside of a bend and thus 
has the advantage of the swifter and, therefore, deeper 
water, though, even so, the harbour suffers from a con- 
tinual deposition of sediment. Below Alloa, the Forth, 
ceasing to wind, flows in a fairly straight south-east course 
past the two small harbours of Clackmannan Pow, at the 
mouth of the Black Devon, and Kennetpans, until, just 
after passing the eastern boundary of the county, where 
the river's breadth is but seven furlongs, it opens out into 
the estuary. 

The next largest river is the Devon, rising in Blair- 
denon Hill at an altitude of some 1800 feet. Then it 
flows, with a bend towards the north, eastwards through 
Perthshire territory for fourteen miles to the Crook of 
Devon. There making an abrupt turn, it pursues a west- 
south-west course through a deep ravine to enter Clack- 
mannanshire again at Dollar. This stretch is most 
famous for its picturesque and wild scenery. Foaming 
and rushing along at the bottom of a deep and, in places, 
overhanging gorge, the river leaps in hidden waterfalls 
into such gloomy chasms as the Devil's Mill, whence the 
tormented and tossing water passes onward beneath the 
Rumbling Bridge to career wildly in alternate leaps and 
swirling rushes down the Caldron Linn. With the river's 
re-entry into Clackmannanshire, the character of the 
valley changes, the steep descent of the narrow gorge is 
succeeded by the gentle gradient of the fertile plain, and 
the river winds placidly westward through a broad belt of 
pleasant agricultural land under the shelter of the bold 
outline of the Ochils. It is this green valley, " where 



26 



CLACKMANNANSHIRE 



Devon, sweet Devon, meandering flow^s," that was 
familiar to Burns, who, on his visit to Harviestoun in 1787, 
wrote the short lyric commencing : 

"How pleasant the banks of the clear winding- Devon, 
With green spreading bushes, and flowers blooming- fair! " 




The Devon, above Vicar's Bridge, Dollar 



On reaching the western border of the county, the river 
turns sharply southwards to join the Forth at Cambus, 
after a course of nearly 34 miles, though in a direct line 
Cambus is but 51 miles from the river's source. 

Thus the Devon has two distinct sections : an upper 
course flowing generally eastwards to the Crook of Devon, 
and a lower flowing westwards from the Crook to Cambus. 



RIVERS 27 

This lower section, when seen on the map, appears 
strikingly peculiar, since the river flows in an opposite 
direction to that followed by the Forth, entering that 
river at quite an unusual angle. This curious feature is 
intelligible when we consider the effect of the great Ochil 
fault on the development of the river system. We may 
conceive the original Devon as a small tributary coming 
down from the southern face of the Ochils and receiving 
on its way to the Forth additional streams from the 
eastern slopes of the Abbey Craig. This little, but rapid, 
stream would gradually cut its bed deeper and deeper and 
would develop side tributaries from the east. Similar 
streams from the Ochils would run down towards the 
Forth, tending always to follow the easiest route. Now, 
the line of fracture of the fault is a line of weakness, 
along which the streams could most easily excavate a bed. 
The tributary, then, which followed the line of the fault 
would rapidly erode its bed ; the land at its source, coming 
thus to have a steeper slope, would weather down at 
a comparatively rapid rate, and the valley would, so to 
speak, eat its way up stream. Progressing in this manner, 
it might tap the head waters of other streams draining the 
Ochil face, and the river, increasing thus in volume and 
erosive power, would continue the process by which the 
divide or water-parting gets pushed further and further 
back until it not only has captured the streams draining 
the southern face of the Ochils but has also tapped the 
head-waters of a river running in the transverse valley 
behind the Blairdenon-to-Whitewisp ridge. This latter 
river, now represented by the upper course of the Devon, 






Diagrams illustrating river "piracy' 

FF a line of weakness 



RIVERS 29 

then flowed straight on past the Crook of Devon along a 
course corresponding to the Gairney Water into the plain 
of Kinross, whence it issued to the sea either by the 
Leven or the Eden. Once the upper waters of the 
Devon were captured at the Crook and turned away 
south-west, the former continuation of the upper stream, 
robbed of its old supply, dwindled into the insignificant 
brook now called the Gairney Water. 

Another feature of interest in the lower Devon valley 
is that the present alluvium hides a deep buried channel. 
Near Tillicoultry a bore struck solid rock at a depth of 
342 feet ; another near Alva at 336 feet ; a third near 
Menstrie at 372 feet. These borings show that the old 
river channel is now about 300 feet below sea-level ; and, 
therefore, the land must have formerly stood higher. 
With the gradual sinking of the land the rate of the swift 
and powerful river would become lessened ; and so the 
gorge would be gradually filled up by the sediment de- 
posited by the stream. 

As a fishing stream, the Devon has a good reputation 
for trout, which average rather less than half a pound 
each ; but the sport is not so good now as formerly, when 
trout and parr were abundant, with pike and eels in the 
deep pools and, in the spawning season, salmon from the 
Forth. 

The third river of Clackmannanshire, the Black 
Devon, rises in the Cleish hills and flows in a course 
generally parallel to the Devon, along the north border 
of The Forest, by the town of Clackmannan to enter the 
Forth at Clackmannan Pow. With an average gradient 



30 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

of I in 134, it is not a rapid stream and seems to take its 
name from the contrast between its dull waters and those 
of the "crystal" Devon. 



6. Natural History. 

The character of the vegetation of any district depends 
for the most part on climate, soil, and human activity. 
Clackmannanshire, therefore, has two quite different zones 
of vegetation : the cultivated land of the warmer and 
drier Carboniferous plain ; and the hill pasture of the 
colder and wetter igneous Ochils. Practically the whole 
of the plain is cultivated, being under crops, grass, or 
plantations. Little wheat or barley is grown, the chief 
cereal being oats. A feature of interest is the existence 
of several meadows sown with Timothy grass [Phleum 
pratense)^ for which the coal mines provide a good local 
market. The plantations, though few of them are more 
than a century old, cover in the aggregate a considerable 
area and, stretching on either hand above the flat meadow- 
lands of the Devon or scattered over the higher central 
ground of the plain, form a notable feature of the land- 
scape. In Tullibody woods the Scots pine [Pinus syhestris) 
is dominant on the higher ground, and associated with it 
is spruce [Picea excelsa). The lower ground is occupied 
by oak, ash, beech, horse-chestnut, plane, and poplar. 
The higher wood on Wood Hill between Alva and 
Tillicoultry is mentioned by the late Robert Smith as 
being planted with mixed trees ; beech, oak and Scots 
pine predominating and flourishing well, while less 



NATURAL HISTORY 31 

abundant are ash, elm, larch, spruce, birch, and rowan. 
The "Forest" at Gartlove is mainly coniferous (Scots pine 
and spruce). 

The Clackmannanshire Ochils are clothed with grass 
to the summits. Two zones of vegetation may be dis- 
tinguished : 

A. Above the cultivated area is a zone of mixed 
grasses, with well marked presence of bracken (up to 
1200 feet on Middle Hill, to looo feet on King's Seat) 
and whin (up to about 500 feet). Juniper also occurs 
occasionally in the bracken zone. This mixed herbage 
provides excellent pasturage for sheep. 

B. Above 1000 feet or so, zone A passes into the 
summit Nardus (white moor grass) zone, which is a 
strong feature of the Ochils. This Nardus zone carries 
a much less varied herbage, as Nardus stricta^ Mol'inia 
(blow grass) and Agrostis (moor-bent) occupy practically 
all the ground. It is a very inferior pasturage except for 
the June-July grazing, when sheep may be seen on the 
very summits, e.g. at King's Seat, 21 11 feet high. The 
upper Nardus zone was possibly once heather land ; 
blaeberry and heather, though almost completely sup- 
pressed by the long-continued use of the hills for pasturage, 
occur here and there in a stunted condition. Arctic- 
alpine plants are very rare on the Ochils: the hills are too 
rounded, and coated with glacial deposits ; they have few 
easily weathered crags to form shelves and crannies which 
suit some species ; nor have they alpine peat suitable to 
others. The following have been recorded, though in 
some cases the record is doubtful : Alchem'illa alpina. 



32 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

Carex r'lgida^ Epilohium alpinum^ Gnaphal'ium sup'inum^ 
Meum athamanticum^ Poa alp'ina^ Polygonum viv'iparum^ 
Rubus chamaemorus^ Salix lapponum^ Saxifraga stellaris^ 
S. hypnoides^ S. hirculus^ Silene acaulis. Saxifraga hirculus 
is an extremely rare plant in any country ; it was reported 
as being discovered in Maddy Moss, north of King's Seat. 

The lower parts of the Ochil glens are occupied by 
deciduous woods, while bracken flourishes on the slopes. 
The abrupt steep gorges of these glens offer many habitats 
for different species ; the glens, being sheltered and having 
a constant water supply, are consequently rich in plant 
life. For the Silver Glen at Alva, an unpublished list of 
Robert Smith's records 24 flowering plants and ferns on 
the rock ledges, and 29 along the stream margins. These 
lists were compiled in September and do not include any 
very rare plants. 

Clackmannanshire is not peculiar in its fauna. The 
usual common wild animals are found, such as the rabbit, 
hedgehog, mole, squirrel and brown rat. The roe-deer, 
formerly to be found in Tullibody woods, is not now met 
with in the county. The otter was thought to have 
become extinct, but still makes a rare appearance in the 
Devon river ; one was captured as recently as May, 1913. 
Of birds, several, such as the bittern, the heron, and the 
snipe, have vanished with the draining of the bogs and 
marshes. The glede has also disappeared and the gold- 
finch is very rarely seen. 




Craighorn Fall, Alva 



D. C. 



34 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 



7. Climate. 

The chief factors which determine chmate are latitude, 
proximity to the ocean, the direction of the prevalent 
winds, and the elevation and exposure of the land. Con- 
sidering Scotland as a whole, we find that the fairly high 
latitude (55^-59° N.) gives a moderately cool climate 
with a mean annual temperature of 46*4° F. ; that the 
proximity of the Atlantic Ocean and the fact that the 
prevalent winds are from the south-west are responsible 
for the moist equable climate, the mean annual range of 
temperature being less than 20° F. The west side, facing 
the Atlantic, has the smaller range of temperature and 
the heavier rainfall. The rain comes at all seasons of the 
year but especially during the winter months, the mean 
annual amount for Scotland being 40*02 inches. Local 
variations in climate are chiefly due to differences in 
elevation and exposure. 

Clackmannanshire, being so small, does not present 
any marked difl^erences in its climate from that of the 
east of Scotland generally ; moreover, since there are not 
any stations in the county sending in returns to the 
Meteorological Oflfice, it is difficult to obtain reliable 
statistics of the actual climate experienced. The tables 
published from the Reports of that office by the Board 
of Agriculture divide Scotland into four divisions. Now 
the mean January temperature for the north-east division 
— the ten counties between the Moray Firth and the 
Forth — is 36-9° F., for the south-east 37' 1°. For 



CLIMATE 



35 



Clackmannanshire, therefore, the most southerly county 
of the north-east division, 37° may be taken as the correct 




Graphs illustrating the mean monthly rainfall of Scotland 



figure. The July temperature is similarly found to lie 
between 56*9° and 57*9°, and may be assumed to be 57'4°, 

3—2 



36 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

This gives an annual range of temperature for the county 
of 20*4°, being, as one would expect from an eastern 
county, somewhat above the mean range for the whole 
of Scotland. 

The total rainfall for each of the four divisions and 
for the whole of Scotland and the distribution of this 
rainfall throughout the year are shown in the graph 
(page 35), which brings out clearly the greater rain- 
fall of the west, especially the north-west, and the 
comparative dryness of the early summer months in 
Scotland. The amount of bright sunshine received has 
a close connection with the amount of rainfall, tending 
to vary inversely, especially so when, as is the case here, 
the summer months are the drier months. We find 
therefore that May and June are the brightest months 
of the year, receiving each nearly 200 hours of bright 
sunshine, except in the north-west where a greater degree 
of cloudiness obtains. If, as before, we attempt to get 
figures for Clackmannanshire as a mean between those 
for north-east and south-east Scotland, the total number 
of hours of bright sunshine appears to be 1490 per annum, 
the monthly minimum being 35^ hours in December 
and the maximum 185 hours in May. The total mean 
annual rainfall for the county would be 327 inches. 

Within the limits of Clackmannanshire there are, 
of course, considerable local variations of climate ; the 
broad distinction being between the higher, more exposed, 
colder and wetter Ochils and the lower, sheltered, warmer 
and drier plain. The difference in elevation between the 
portions north and south of the Ochil fault is sufficient 



CLIMATE 37 

in itself to account for a difference of some 5" in tem- 
perature ; and, since the southern part is sheltered from 
the north winds, the actual difference would be greater. 
The southern slopes of the Ochils benefit equally with 
the plain in being sheltered from the north and, more- 
over, present a surface more nearly normal to the rays 
of the sun. The mean annual rainfall at Alloa is 32-46 
inches ; but nearer the hills the rainfall is heavier, being 
39*97 at Alva House and 41*66 at Dollar. On the hills 
themselves the amount is considerably greater than this, 
and, at times of heavy rainfall, the rivers rise rapidly and 
come down in a huge spate, while the boggy morass called 
Maddy Moss has been known to burst its barriers and 
send down a jostling torrent of mud by the Burn of 
Sorrow to the Devon below. These Lammas floods 
have often caused the Devon below Dollar to overflow 
its banks, destroying any crops in the low fields adjacent. 
Such a flood is noted in the Old Statistical Account : 
" A very remarkable and uncommon flood happened in 
September 1785, which carried away a prodigious quantity 
of corn, broke down a stone bridge at the Rack Mill, in 
Dollar, and occasioned other very extraordinary damage. 
The river rose in four or five hours more than 13 feet 
above its usual height at Tillicoultry Bridge." A later 
and more disastrous flood occurred in August 1877. 
That month had been one of particularly heavy rainfall, 
so heavy, indeed, that it caused the total rainfall for that 
year to be greater than previously recorded in many parts 
of Scotland, including Dollar, where the total fall was 
61*28 inches as against the average figure of 41*66. 




Waterfall in Tillicoultry Glen 



CLIMATE 39 

Throughout the night of the 27th August, a steady 
fall of rain had swollen the Ochil burns and, when 
morning came, a torrential downpour was descending 
from the gloomy and sombre sky. The dark hillside 
was streaked with the white of foaming, tumbling 
cataracts, which, pouring downwards into the turgid 
flood of the Devon, caused widespread inundation and 
devastation. The town of Tillicoultry suffered severely — 
to the extent, it is said, of some ^8000. 



8. Agriculture. 

The 191 1 Census returned the number of persons 
engaged in agriculture in Clackmannanshire as 490, one 
out of every 19 occupied males. Considerably less than 
half the land is now under cultivation, while one-third is 
mountain and heath land used for grazing. Oats and 
rotation grasses occupy more than two-thirds of the 
arable land, the remaining third being utilised for root 
crops, beans, wheat or barley. The soil south of the 
Ochil fault varies from a stiff clay to a sandy loam, 
the heavier soils being near the Forth, and the lighter, 
drier soils on the higher ground. In many places, how- 
ever, the soil is peaty, and this accounts for the extensive 
cultivation of oats, since this crop, like potatoes, is more 
tolerant of extreme amounts of acid humus in the soil. 

Before the close of the eighteenth century, the 
agriculture of the county was carried on in a wretched 
and wasteful manner. The holdin2;s were so small as 



40 



CLACKMANNANSHIRE 



barely to furnish a subsistence to the family of the tenant, 
who, unable to carry out drainage operations on a suitable 
scale, found much of his cold, wet, and stiff clay soil not 
worth the trouble of working. Crude methods of culti- 
vation, the absence of fences, the abundance of whins 
and weeds, miserable farm buildings and bad roads were 




Harviestoun Castle 



among the causes which rendered the farmer's existence 
poverty-stricken and precarious. The improvement when 
it came, proceeded apace. The size of the farms was 
increased as leases expired, in Clackmannan parish the 
number of holdings was reduced by 40 in 20 years ; 
drainage and fencing were undertaken ; in 1774, 300 



AGRICULTURE 41 

acres of common grazing land belonging to the feuars 
of Tillicoultry were taken by agreement for enclosure ; 
thirlages and services were abolished ; a better rotation 
of crops was introduced. Led by such men as Tait of 
Harviestoun, the county rapidly acquired a reputation for 
successful farming •, a Farmers' Society was established in 
1784 ; three years later the first efFective thrashing machuie 
in Scotland was erected at Kilbagie by George Meikle, 
the son of its celebrated inventor, both of whom resided 
at Alloa. In 179^ a plough and ploughman were sent 
from the county to give an exhibition at the Royal Farm 
at Windsor ; and, in the same year, one of the enclosures 
of the Harviestoun estate was let at four guineas an acre 
for grazing, whereas a few years before the best carse 
lands of Clackmannan were rented at 435. per annum. 
This high price, however, did not continue. 

The improvements so successfully and rapidly intro- 
duced have steadily continued ; but, since the middle of 
the nineteenth century, there has been throughout the 
country a contraction of the cultivated area year by year 
and a tendency for arable land to revert to pasture. This 
has been brought about mainly by the lowering of the 
price of corn consequent upon the enormous increase m 
imported grain. In seeking to discover to what extent 
the area under cultivation in Clackmannanshire has con- 
tracted, it is useless to take the actual acreage at different 
times, because the county boundaries have altered, but 
a comparison of the proportion of cultivated land to the 
total area would be a sufficiently reliable index and such 



is given below. 



42 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

Aj'ea of Cultivated Land expressed as a Percentage 
of Total Area 

1854 1881 1911 

59 49 44 

Area under various Crops or Grass expressed as a 

Percentage of Total Area under Cultivation 

1S54 

Wheat 7 

Barley 7 

Oats 16 

Beans 6 

Turnips 7 

Rotation Grasses 2 r 

Permanent Pasture 29 

The Ochils provide excellent pasture for sheep, of 
which there were in 191 1 15,220. There are some fine 
Leicesters on the best farms, but on the Ochils are kept 
black-faced ewes, crosses being bred from these with 
Leicester rams. The cattle number 3479, mainly cross- 
bred from Ayrshire cows and short-horned bulls, though 
many of the dairymen have bought Irish cows. 

Only 3715 acres are now under woods and plantations, 
much less than formerly. Of the natural wood of the 
ancient forest, nothing remains but a very small portion 
within the grounds of Alloa House. The largest patches 
of woodland now existing are the " Forest " of Clack- 
mannan, at one time a royal domain, and Tullibody 
Woods. 



881 


191 I 


5 


2 


7 


I 


21 


19 


4 


2 


6 


5 


22 


24 


28 


40 



INDUSTRIES AND MANUFACTURES 43 
9. Industries and Manufactures. 

The chief industry of Clackmannanshire is the woollen 
and worsted manufacture, which now provides work for 
more than half the occupied females and for one-third 
of the occupied males. This manufacture, originating, 
doubtless, because of the large number of sheep on the 
Ochils, dates at least as far back as 1550, and was, for 
a long time, purely a domestic industry. The wool was 
hand-carded and spun by the wife, while the yarn was 
woven into cloth by the husband, the wife usually under- 
taking the purchase of the wool from the hill farmers and 
the sale of the cloth to the merchants. It was an ad- 
vantage also to be near a stream, both for the purpose 
of cleaning the fleece and because the fulling of the cloth 
was done by the feet in the burn. Thus the industry 
gathered round the hill streams ; Tillicoultry, Alva and 
Menstrie became important centres, Tillicoultry serges 
being famous throughout Scotland. These places were 
well situated to benefit by the later industrial develop- 
ments, the hill streams provided water power, while 
supplies of coal were at hand. At first only blankets, 
serges and a coarse kind of plaiding were made ; but, 
about the beginning of the nineteenth century, new 
enterprises were started ; a successful tartan shawl 
manufacture began at Alva and Tilh'coultry, and in 
the New Statistical Account the great increase of popu- 
lation in the latter place — from 1472 in 1831 to 3213 
in 1 84 1 — is ascribed to the rapid increase in the shawl 
trade. In 18 16 John Paton commenced the spinning 



INDUSTRIES AND MANUFACTURES 45 

of worsted yarns at Alloa, which has proved in recent 
years the most prosperous manufacture of all. Alloa 
is now the great centre ; tweeds, it is true, are no longer 
manufactured there ; but all kinds of yarn are spun, the 
material used being chiefly colonial, Cheviot, or Saxony 
wools, as the wool from the black-faced sheep of the 
Ochils is too coarse. The older centres, Tillicoultry, 
with nearly a dozen factories, and Alva, are still associated 
with the manufacture ; and Messrs Paton have also a large 
yarn mill at Clackmannan. 

Another industry is brewing and distilling, in which 
831 persons are employed. Brewing is an old-established 
industry ; the Sheriff's Account of 1359, states that the 
brewing women of Clackmannan were wont to pay an 
annual licence of fourpence. Alloa is now the centre 
of this industry, and its ales have been famous since the 
first brewery was established in 1784. To-day there are 
eight breweries with an aggregate annual output of over 
100,000 barrels. Spirits were formerly manufactured at 
Kilbagie and Kennetpans. In the latter part of the 
eighteenth century, Kilbagie was the largest distillery 
in Scotland, with an annual output of 3000 tuns of 
whisky. It was connected by canal and tramway with 
Kennetpans ; and the two distilleries are said to have 
paid in excise duties an amount greater than the whole 
land tax of Scotland at that time. Indeed, in 1861, 
the excise duties on spirits and malt from Clackmannan- 
shire contributed a sixty-eighth part of the revenue of the 
United Kingdom. Changes in the law brought about 
the abandonment of these old distilleries : the most 



46 



CLACKMANNANSHIRE 



important now existing are Carsebridge, established in 
1799, one of the largest in the country, with a capacity 
for a weekly output of 6o,ooo gallons, — Glenochil near 
Menstrie, and Cambus. 

The manufacture of iron provides work for 435 men. 
There is a foundry at Alloa, but the chief establishment 
was the Devon Iron Works near the Devon in the north 




The docks, Alloa 



of Alloa parish. These works, founded in 1792, were at 
first largely dependent upon local sources of supply, em- 
ploying at one time 150 miners, but the seam of iron 
became exhausted. After experiencing fluctuating fortunes 
and frequent changes of ownership, the manufacture was 
abandoned some 40 years ago. 

In addition to the industries common to all counties. 



INDUSTRIES AND MANUFACTURES 47 

such as house building and furnishing, the preparation and 
sale of provisions, Clackmannanshire has bottle and glass 
works, shipbuilding yards, saw mills and rope walks 
at Alloa ; paper mills at Kilbagie ; brick and tile yards 
and pottery works at Alloa and Clackmannan. 



lo. Mines and Minerals. 

The Clackmannan coalfield, which lies, of course, 
entirely to the south of the Ochil fault, is one of con- 
siderable value. It begins at the boundary with Fife, 
where the Millstone Grit dips gradually under the Upper 
Coal Measures. The Sauchie coalfield was the earliest 
to be worked, but its development was retarded by the 
lack of good roads to bring the coal to market. Towards 
the close of the eighteenth century the Devon Iron Works 
Company, then the tacksmen or lessees, found it hardly pro- 
fitable to continue working the seams, since the only road 
to the port of Alloa was a semi-private one leading 
through the estates of the Mar family, by whom it was 
kept in repair and to whom had to be paid the Gate Mail, 
a toll of fourpence on every chalder of coal. The Clack- 
mannan coal is now worked by the Alloa Coal Company, 
in whose deepest colliery 17 seams are found, aggregating 
50 feet in thickness, five of these being under two feet. 
During the quinquennial period 1873-1877, the average 
animal output was 226,526 tons, since when it has almost 
doubled, the average annual output 1 900-1 904 being 
421,448 tons. The output for 19 11 was 414,746 tons. 



48 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

The coal shipments from Alloa, where nearly half this 
output is shipped, are as follows : 



1870 


95,925 


tons 


1880 


132*043 


?> 


1890 


300,921 


n 


1900 


274,877 


)> 


191 1 


214,826 


„ 



The great increase in the shipments following 1885 was 
due to new docks and improved facilities for coaling ; 
but the decline since 1890 seems to be the result of the 
development of the Fifeshire coalfields and the competition 
of the better situated ports below the Forth Bridge. In 
191 1, 1477 persons in Clackmannanshire were engaged 
in the coal industry; and the quantity of available coal 
from this field was estimated by the Royal Commission 
on Coal Supplies in 1905 at 443,800,366 tons. 

No other minerals are at present worked in the 
county, though iron, silver, and copper were formerly 
mined, while lead, cobalt, arsenic, sulphur, and antimony 
occur in small quantities among the igneous rocks of the 
Ochils. The iron was mainly wrought in the vicinity 
of Tillicoultry ; and, in 1793, ^^^ Devon Iron Works 
employed 64 miners and 10 women bearers in working 
the ironstone. A cave in the Mill Glen still marks 
an adit of an abandoned mine. In the Mill Glen, too, 
copper was wrought for a few years in the middle of the 
eighteenth century ; a London company employing 50 
miners till the veins, of which the thickest was about 
18 inches, became exhausted. The little glen 
between the Middle and Wood hills behind Alva is 




The Silver Glen, Alva 



D. C. 



50 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

known as the Silver Glen ; and here Sir John Erskine, 
in 17 12, discovered his famous silver mine, which, for 
a time, was worked with considerable success, bringing 
to the owner nearly ^50,000 worth of silver. The 
attention of the Government was called to this mine and 
Sir Isaac Newton, as Master of the Mint, assayed the 
silver. Sir John, being involved in the Jacobite rebellion, 
had been outlawed in 1715, but his sentence seems to 
have been remitted in consideration of the knowledge 
of the workings which he was able to impart to the 
Government, who sent down a German expert to in- 
vestigate the mine. Though his report stated that the 
ore was exceedingly rich, the returns from the working 
rapidly dwindled to the vanishing point ; and Sir John 
seems to have lost most of his gains by continuing the 
enterprise after the veins had become exhausted. A 
resumption of the mining 40 years later proved equally 
unprofitable, though Alva church gained a pair of com- 
munion cups made from the native silver. 

From pits or quarries within the county were obtained 
in 191 1, 4142 tons of gravel and sand valued at £2'^^, 
7584 tons of igneous rock worth £S^^, and 1520 tons of 
sandstone worth £2^2- 



II. History. 

The history of Clackmannanshire has been a quiet 
one ; few , great events have taken place within the 
county ; armies have seldom encamped on its soil ; it 



HISTORY 51 

has not been the centre of great movements affecting 
the social or religious life of the country. Nor is the 
uneventful nature of the history of Clackmannan difficult 
to understand. The main current of Scottish history 
swept past the western boundary of Fife ; whatever 
military campaigns were undertaken, it was seldom 
necessary to attempt the seizure of the peninsula. One 
may search the session records of the Clackmannanshire 
parishes and discover scarcely any reflection of the general 
history of the country, even during its most eventful 
periods. Moreover, though Clackmannanshire is the 
southern door to Fife, the key to that door is Stirling. 
That town is famous as a place of great strategic import- 
ance ; its neighbourhood is thickly studded with the sites 
of battlefields. To the holder of Stirling, the possession 
of Fife was not a matter of urgent importance. The 
military history of Fife, since the incursions of the 
Northmen, is meagre in the extreme ; so also is that 
of Clackmannan, but the influential centres in the former 
county, from which light and learning spread over Scot- 
land, have no counterpart in the latter. In fact, the few 
incidents, worthy of mention in this brief history, are 
connected with men who passed through on their way 
to or from more eventful scenes. 

It seems probable that, during the Roman occupation, 
some of the expeditions beyond the Antonine wall may 
have passed through Clackmannan. Roman coins have 
been discovered ; a double-edged straight iron sword, 31 
inches long, was dug up near Harviestoun in 1796 ; 
cinerary urns have been found at Alva, Tillicoultry and 

4—2 



52 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

elsewhere. In 1828, while an old road at Alloa was 
under repair, a supposed Roman burial-ground was dis- 
covered. Twenty cinerary urns of coarse pottery, rudely 
ornamented, were found, along with two stone coffins 
and a pair of gold penannular armlets. 

In the early centuries of our era the men of this 
district belonged to the great Celtic tribe known to the 
Romans as Damnonii. Later, the county was part of 
the debatable land in the middle of Scotland, the district 
of Manann, inhabited by a mixed population of Britons, 
Angles and Picts, the scene of conflicts among the differ- 
ent peoples whose countries met here. 

About the close of the seventh century, St Serf came 
to the Fife peninsula to convert the Picts. Many curious 
traditions linger round his name : of his long argument 
with the Devil at Dysart ; how he slew a dragon at 
Dunning ; how he raised from the dead two young men 
at Tillicoultry ; of the pathetic death at that place of his 
pet goat, or lamb ; how he rescued from the waters 
of the Forth an infant, who later became St Mungo. 
This much at least is true, that St Serf lived and that, 
from Culross as centre, he went out preaching and 
teaching, visiting, among other places, Tullibody, Tilli- 
coultry and Alva. A well at Alva, a bridge over the 
Devon, and an island in Loch Leven, commemorate 
his name. 

One of the greatest events of the ninth century was 
the union of the Picts and the Scots (844) under Kenneth 
MacAlpin. No precise and satisfactory account of the 
union is preserved. It is conjectured that Kenneth had 



HISTORY 



53 



a plausible claim to the Pictish crown, and taking ad- 
vantage of an invasion of Pictland by the Northmen — 
perhaps in concert w^ith them — he forced the Picts to 
submit. Tradition locates their defeat near Tullibody, 
where a stone on Baingle Brae was reputed to mark the 
battlefield. Kenneth's son Constantin had many troubles 




Tullibody Church 



with the Northmen. In 877 a swarm of them from 
Ireland penetrated the Firth of Clyde, crossed to the east 
coast, and defeated him at Dollar. He fled, but was 
brought to bay in the Fife parish of Forgan, where he 
fell with many of his men. 

In 1559 French troops were on the coast of Fife 
in the service of the Queen Regent. Their commander, 



54 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

hearing that the Enghsh fleet sent to aid the Lords of the 
Congregation had arrived in the Forth, decided to retreat 
towards Stirhng. To impede his march, Kirkaldy of 
Grange broke down the bridge of Tullibody over the 
Devon, then swollen by winter floods. The French, 
however, unroofed the church of Tullibody and repaired 
the broken bridge. 

Much greater disasters to the county attended the 
passage of the royalist force of Montrose in 1645. He 
burnt Muckart and Dollar and also Castle Campbell, 
then one of the seats of Montrose's bitter enemy, the 
Marquis of Argyll. Alloa having been plundered by 
Montrose's lawless Irish auxiliaries, the main body spent 
the night in Tullibody Wood, while their leader and his 
chief oflficers were lavishly entertained at Alloa House 
by the Earl of Mar. Argyll, who was in pursuit, by 
way of reprisal burnt Menstrie House, the seat of the 
Earl of Stirling, and Airthrey Castle belonging to Sir 
John Graham of Braco, Montrose's uncle. He also 
threatened to return and burn Alloa House to teach 
the Earl of Mar to be more careful in his choice of 
guests. Though Montrose's victory at Kilsyth removed 
any immediate danger to Mar, yet, after Montrose's 
complete defeat at Philiphaugh by David Leslie, it was 
only the victor's direct intervention that saved the 
Earl's life. 



ARCHITECTURE 55 

12. Architecture. 

The oldest castles now standing in Clackmannanshire 
go back to the Wars of Independence. Built at a time 
when the kingdom was in a disturbed state and when the 
great barons had neither the means nor the inclination to 
erect costly ornamental edifices, the early castles were 
especially designed for strength in defence. Their general 
plan of construction is similar, and shows the influence 
of the Norman ideas introduced into Scotland either by 
Anglo-Norman immigrants or by those who, during their 
raiding expeditions into the north of England, had seen 
Norman keeps. Examples of such imitations are Castle 
Campbell, Alloa Tower, and Clackmannan Tower. 
Generally speaking, these and similar buildings consisted 
of a square or oblong tower with walls of great thickness 
built entirely of stone. The walls of Alloa Tower are 
ten feet thick and a convincing proof of their ability to 
withstand attack by fire was given in 1800 when, a fire 
having accidentally broken out, only the ancient tower 
survived the conflagration, while the extensive buildings 
which had been added were burnt to the ground. These 
square towers were defended from the roof, which had a 
parapet supported on corbels. In some cases, as at Castle 
Campbell, small overhanging turrets — bartizans — projected 
from the angles of the battlements. In some cases the 
parapet had openings through which molten lead or other 
material might be cast on the heads of assailants. Such 
openings, styled machicolations, are, however, unusual in 
Clackmannanshire. The entrance to the tower was 



56 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

usually made to the first floor level by a ladder or some 
other easily-removable means. The ground floor vv^as 
used as a store-room and, like the other floors, was vaulted. 
The first floor was the common hall and the second 
contained the private rooms, while, if there were four 
storeys, the top floor contained attics for the garrison, 
entering from the battlements. These floors were con- 
nected v/ith each other by means of a straight flight of 
stairs in the thickness of the walls or by a newel stair, 
i.e. a stone staircase winding upwards inside an upright 
column in the angle of the walls. This was the usual 
type of building and one so constructed might well defy 
the most determined onslaught, more especially as the 
towers occupied positions naturally strong, as the top of 
a precipitous hill, and were surrounded by a courtyard 
within a wall of enceinte. These towers, however, 
provided but cramped and inconvenient accommodation. 
As time went on, the need for defence became less urgent 
while the desire for further accommodation became more 
imperative. Wings were added, making the buildings 
approximate to the plan of a mansion built round a 
quadrangle. In the examples in Clackmannanshire, the 
old quadrilateral tower is seen to be the main body of the 
building, and the later additions, more extensive and, in 
one case, higher than the original tower, are merely 
adjuncts to it. 

Probably the oldest castle in the county, as it is 
certainly the finest in situation, is Castle Campbell. It 
stands, one mile north of Dollar, on the crest of a rock 
surrounded by deep wooded ravines on all sides except 



ARCHITECTURE 



57 



the north, its only accessible side in former days. A 
modern pathway up the glen to the castle was opened in 
1865. The Castle passed, by marriage, into the hands 
of the Campbell family about the middle of the fifteenth 
century ; and the new owner obtained in 1489 an Act 
of Parliament changing its old name of Castle Gloume. 
The chief incidents in its history were the visit of John 




Castle Campbell 

Knox in 1556, the burning of the castle by Montrose in 
1645, ^"d ^ts garrisoning by Cromwell's soldiers in 1652. 
The little knoll on the green sward in front of the castle, 
and between it and the edge of the cliff, is reputed to 
be the place where the great Reformer dispensed the 
sacrament of the Lord's Supper. After the Castle's 
partial destruction by Montrose, it was allowed to fall 



58 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

into disrepair ; in 1805 the Argyll family sold the property 
to the Taits of Harviestoun, who sold it to Sir Andrew 
Orr in 1859. ^^^ original keep of Castle Campbell 
shows all the regular features mentioned above. It is a 
plain quadrilateral structure of four storeys, three of them 
vaulted ; while the parapet supported on a corbel course 
has rounded bartizans with carved gargoyles. From the 
ground level, a straight flight of stairs in the thickness 
of the wall leads to the first floor, across which, in the 
opposite wall, another staircase leads to the upper floors. 
The horizontal position of the loopholes for firearms in 
the extension buildings shows them to be of later date. 
Other points of interest in the south wing are the fine 
entrance portico and the unusual feature of a corridor 
on the first floor connecting the two staircases and the 
apartments. 

Alloa Tower, built about the commencement of the 
fourteenth century, was granted by David II in 1360 to 
Sir Robert Erskine in exchange for Strathgartney in 
Perthshire. The old newel staircase in the south-west angle 
still remains and the top floor with the battlements 
preserves its original features ; but otherwise the tower, 
especially the interior, has been considerably altered. 
Wings were added later to the old keep and in time an 
extensive range of buildings arose. The Erskines, in 
whose hands the property remains to-day, were for more 
than a hundred years the guardians of the royal heirs 
to the throne of Scotland ; at Alloa Queen Mary spent 
part of her childhood, and here also, in later years, were 
brought up her son James, and James's heir, the young 



ARCHITECTURE 59 

Prince Henry. The present seat of the family, Alloa 
Park, was erected in 1838. The white freestone, of 
which this handsome mansion in the Grecian style is built, 
was obtained from quarries on the estate. 

Clackmannan Tower, whether built, as tradition 
asserts, by King Robert Bruce or not, was certainly a 
royal domain till 1359. ^hen David H granted it to a 




Clackmannan Tower 

relation. Sir Robert Bruce, in whose family it remained 
till 1 79 1. It is now the property of the Marquis of 
Zetland. The oldest portion of the building is the rect- 
angular tower on the north side. The south wing was 
added about 1500 as the style of the fine fireplace on the 
second floor helps to prove ; and it is a unique feature 
that the new wing was carried to a height greater than 



60 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

that of the original keep. Later additions of the seven- 
teenth century include the walls round the forecourt with 
the moat and drawbridge in front, the belfry on the watch 
turret, and the Renaissance arch and entablature of the 
east doorway. 

Besides providing additional accommodation by adding 
wings, the later proprietors sometimes erected buildings 
round the inside of the walls of enceinte. An example 
of this occurs at Old Sauchie Tower, where a house was 
added to the west wall in 1631. The keep itself, standing 
in the grounds of Schaw Park, was erected about the 
middle of the fifteenth century by Sir James Schaw, whose 
family arms and motto " I mein weill " may be seen in 
the tympanum above the entrance door in the western 
wall. The motto which can, perhaps, be made out in 
the tympana above the dormer windows to the left and 
right of this door, is " En bien faisant " on the left, con- 
tinuing "je me contente " on the right. The property 
remained in the hands of this distinguished family for 
nearly four hundred years. In 1752 Sir John Schaw died 
leaving an only child as heiress. She married Charles, 
Lord Cathcart, whose grandson sold the property to the 
present owner, the Earl of Mansfield. 

Little is now left of the once large mansion of 
Menstrie Castle, where Sir William Alexander, the first 
Earl of Stirling, was born. He was Secretary of State 
for Scotland, 1 626-1 640, one of the leaders of the enter- 
prise for colonising Nova Scotia, and a poet of some 
merit. The only part of Menstrie Castle now fairly well 
preserved is the south front, where the entrance gateway 



ARCHITECTURE 61 

is worthy of notice, exhibiting a somewhat curious 
example of that mixture of Scottish and Classic architec- 
ture which is characteristic of the seventeenth century. 

The chief mansions in the county, besides Alloa Park 
and Schaw Park, are Kennet House, built in the early 
years of the nineteenth century, the seat of the Bruces of 
Kennet, who, in 1868, established their claim to the 
Barony of Balfour of Burleigh; Alva House ; Harviestoun 
Castle, built in the Italian style in 1804, a new porch 
and tower being added in i860 (see p. 40); Tillicoultry 
House, built 1806 ; Tullibody House. 

The ecclesiastical architecture of the county is not of 
great interest. Tullibody church was built by David I 
in 1 149, but Tullibody is no longer a separate parish and 
regular service has long been discontinued in the old 
building. The existing parish churches of Clackmannan- 
shire are all modern buildings dating from the first half of 
the nineteenth century and are mostly Gothic in style. 



13. Distribution of Population. Com= 
munications. 

The courses followed by the roads and the positions 
of the urban centres of population are, in a sense, mutually 
dependent. Modern roads — improved highways repre- 
senting older beaten tracks — have been constructed for 
the purpose of connecting the larger centres of population ; 
but it is also true that a highway once constructed attracts 
inhabitants. Other things being equal, people prefer to 



62 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

live close to the highway, where they can most readily 
obtain the benefit of easy communication. In Clack- 
mannanshire, generally speaking, the roads have influenced 
the positions of the towns rather than the towns the 
direction of the roads. From Stirling roads lead into the 
Fife peninsula along the narrow stretch of flat ground 
between the river Forth and the steep southern face of 
the Ochils, but, where this narrow passage opens out 
eastwards, the ridge of the Cleish Hills splits it in two. 
Hence there are two main roads from Stirling into Fife : 
one north of the Cleish hills through Kinross, and one 
south of the Cleish hills through Dunfermline. The 
towns of Clackmannanshire are found strung out along 
these two roads. Were there no other considerations to 
be taken into account, the towns might be expected at 
approximately equal intervals ; they would be small urban 
accretions, each with its church, school, inn, and shops 
serving the more essential needs of the immediate neigh- 
bourhood. A glance at the accompanying sketch map 
shows that the actual distribution of towns does fulfil such 
an expectation, but there are some further considerations 
to be noted. The place where the Forth ceases to wind 
is peculiarly suitable for the growth of a river port and 
here, in fact, grew up Alloa, a town which now holds 
more than half the burghal population of the county. In 
order to include Alloa, the southern or Dunfermline road 
leaves the direct line to bend southwards. The precise 
positions of the towns on the northern or Kinross road 
are obviously determined by the hillside burns. An 
abundant supply of pure water is always a desideratum. 



POPULATION COMMUNICATIONS 63 

and was especially favourable to the woollen industry. 
A secondary system of roads connects the towns on the 
northern highway with those on the southern. 

That the railway lines do not exactly correspond to 
the main roads is a consequence of the time and order 




Sketch-map of Clackmannanshire, showing the influence of 
the physical features on the lines of communication 

of their development. The railway corresponding to the 
easier southern road was the first to be constructed. This 
was the Stirling and Dunfermline railway opened to traffic 
in 1850; with, in 1851, a branch line from Alloa to 
Tillicoultry, at that time a prosperous town, whose rapid 



64 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

growth promised considerable traffic. When the more 
difficult construction of the railway corresponding to the 
northern road along the Devon valley was undertaken, 
the promoters, finding Tillicoultry already connected with 
Alloa, preferred to start their line from Tillicoultry instead 
of from Stirling. Thus the Stirling-to-TilHcoultry section 
of the north road has no railway corresponding ; though, 
in 1863, the gap was partly filled up by the short branch 
which, leaving the Dunfermline line at Cambus, runs 
through Menstrie to Alva. The Devon valley line was 
finally opened to traffic on the completion of the difficult 
section from Dollar to Rumbling Bridge in 187 1. In 
1875 this line was absorbed by the North British Railway. 
In 1883, the Caledonian Railway obtained access to 
Alloa by the bridge over the Forth. Since 181 5 there 
has been regular communication in the summer months 
by steamer between Stirling, Alloa and Leith. 

A table showing the distribution of population by 
parishes is appended : 

Density of population per square mile^ by parishes 

„ . , r-v V • ^ ^ 1 Density in extra-burghal 

Parish Density in total area ^ . , ° 

^ portion only 



Alloa ... ... 1530 

Alva ... ... 470 

Clackmannan ... 197 

Dollar ... ... 167 

Tillicoultry ... 415 



522 
81 

197 
SI 

147 



The parish of Alloa, which occupies rather more than 
a fifth part of the county, contains more than half (55 ^) 
of the total population of Clackmannanshire. It is the 




o 

(0 

I a 

J3 



D. C. 



6Q CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

only parish whose population has increased during the 
last intercensal period. The burghal portion of the in- 
habitants of the county is almost exactly double the 
extra-burghal. 



14. Administration. 

In former times, the local government of the county 
was largely in the hands of the sheriff, who was both 
a judicial and an administrative officer. He possessed 
both criminal and civil jurisdiction. His administrative 
functions were partly military and partly financial : he 
had command over the militia and was responsible for its 
efficiency ; he had to collect and account for all feudal 
casualities, fines, and forfeitures. Later, though the office 
of sheriff was maintained, the real executive power passed, 
both in England and Scotland, into the hands of the 
resident county gentry. In Scotland, when acting in an 
administrative capacity, these were known as Commis- 
sioners of Supply, a body first established in 1667. As 
Commissioners of Supply, all were enrolled who had the 
necessary qualification, which varied from time to time 
but was always based on the possession of landed property. 
The whole structure of local government was reformed 
by the Acts of 1889 and 1894. The Local Government 
(Scotland) Act of 1889 established an elected County 
Council in every county. The chief duty of the Com- 
missioners of Supply now is to appoint one-half of 
the members of the Standing Joint Committee, which 



ADMINISTRATION 67 

controls police affairs and capital expenditure. All other 
administrative functions of the Commissioners were 
transferred to the County Council, which elects the other 
half of the Standing Joint Committee. The County 
Council also took over the powers of the County Road 
Trustees and became the Local Authority under the 
Public Health Acts. It now has the general oversight 




County Buildings, Alloa 

of the local government of the whole county with the 
exception of the burghs. For public health administration 
the counties are divided into districts, in each of which 
a District Committee is appointed, consisting of the county 
councillors for the district together with a representative 
from each parish council. 

The Act of 1894 established parish councils whose 

5—2 



68 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

chief duty is the management of poor rehef, though they 
have also the control of footpaths and the power to 
provide recreation grounds, baths, libraries, and cemeteries. 
The administration of primary education belongs to school 
boards elected ad hoc^ that of secondary and technical 
education is under the County Education Committee. 
This Committee is elected by the County Council and 
the chairmen of the school boards. 

The earliest sheriff's account for Clackmannanshire 
in the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland is Sir John Menteith's 
account for 1 348-1 359. It shows that the Crown then 
possessed considerable property within the county, for the 
receipts include the rents of several estates, crofts and 
orchards and a certain sum for the foggage of the Forest 
of Clackmannan. The disbursements include several 
royal gifts and also the fee to the sheriff as Constable 
of the Tower of Clackmannan. The office of sheriff 
was hereditary in the family of Menteith from the time 
of Sir John till 1631 ; in the family of Hope of Wester 
Granton, 163 8-1 666, and in that of Bruce of Clack- 
mannan, 1 666-1 693. The last hereditary sherifl was 
the Earl of Dumfries, to whom, on the passing of the 
Heritable Jurisdictions Abolition Act, 1748, a sum of 
{jiooo was paid as compensation for the loss of his office. 
The modern sheriff is now a judicial officer appointed by 
the Crown. Clackmannan shares a sheriff-principal with 
Stirling and Dumbarton, and a sheriff-substitute with 
Kinross. Nearly all the administrative functions formerly 
exercised by the sheriff are now vested in the County 
Council while his position as head of the territorial military 



ADMINISTRATION 69 

forces has passed to the Lord Lieutenant. Clackmannan 
provides three companies (E, F, H) of the 7th Battalion 
of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders with a strength 
of seven officers and 270 men out of an establishment of 
10 officers and 353 men. 

There are four police burghs in the county : Alloa, 
Alva, Dollar, and Tillicoultry. Clackmannan was 
formerly a burgh of barony, but is now a "special 
district " for water, drainage, scavenging and lighting. 
For purposes of ecclesiastical administration, the parishes 
are in the presbyteries of Stirling and Dunblane within 
the synod of Stirling and Perth. The county is united 
with Kinross-shire for parliamentary representation. 



15. Roll of Honour. 

The Erskines of Alloa, the Menteiths, the Bruces 
of Clackmannan and their related house of Kennet, the 
Taits of Harviestoun, the Abercrombies of Brucefield and 
Tullibody, the Johnstones of Alva — all had a long and 
honourable connection with the county, a connection 
which, in some cases, still remains unbroken. It is 
possible here to record the achievements only of the most 
renowned scions of these houses. 

The connection of the Erskine family with the 
Earldom of Mar is somewhat obscure. The direct line 
of the old Earls of Mar failed in 1374; and in 1391 
Sir Thomas Erskine claimed the earldom in right 
of his wife. Their descendant John, the sixth Lord 



70 



CLACKMA^N^NANSHIRE 



Erskine, received the title of Earl of Mar in 1565. 
Perhaps the most interesting member of this family is 
the Jacobite Earl, born at Alloa House in 1675. He 
was a Privy Councillor under William III ; in Anne's 




The Jacobite Earl of Mar 



reign he changed sides more than once ; he was one of 
the chief promoters of the Union of 1707, which he soon 
professed to regret ; for years before Anne's dtiath he was 



ROLL OF HONOUR 71 

in communication with the Pretender, but he was en- 
thusiastically ready to welcome the Hanovenan Kmg. 
Mar's extraordinary versatility, even in an age when 
changing sides was no rarity, gained him the mckname of 
"Bobbing John." George I deprived him of h.s post as 
Secretary of State and of the hereditary guard.ansh.p of 
Stirling Castle. Under the Pretender's orders, Mar, 
August 17.5, left London for Scotland to stir up war 
On the 6th September the Jacobite standard was raised 
at Braemar. Perth was seized on the l6th, but the 
indecisive battle of Sheriffmuir, 13th November proved 
fatal to the Jacobites. James landed at Peterhead on 
the 22nd December, but the absence of French support 
rendered the rising abortive ; and, early in February the 
Prince, Mar and other leaders escaped to France. Mar 
never returned and died at Aix-la-Chapelle ,n 1732. 
The earldom was restored to his grandson m . 824 1 he 
present title of the head of the family is Earl of Mar and 

*^''of the Abercromby family, the most famous member 
was Sir Ralph, who was born at Menstrie in 1734 ^"^ 
had a distinguished military career in Flanders, the 
West Indies, and Egypt. When in command m the 
Mediterranean, he received orders to expel the French 
from Egypt, and, landing at Aboukir Bay on the 8th 
March, 180,, he was completely successful m resisting 
a violent attack by the French general, Menou. Un- 
happily, Sir Ralph was wounded in the thigh and died 
seven days later. Sir Ralph's third son James was elected 
Speaker of the House of Commons in 1835 and, on 




Sir Ralph Abercromby 



ROLL OF HONOUR 73 

relinquishing office in 1839, was created Baron Dun- 
fermline. Hence the claim, which was inscribed on an 
old village flag, that "Tullibody has served its country 
with valour in the field and with firmness in the Senate." 

Another famous soldier was the first Lord Colville 
of Culross, to whom the estate of Tillicoultry belonged. 
He served under Henry of Navarre against the Catholic 
League. Raised to the peerage by James VI in 1609, 
he spent his latter years at Tillicoultry, where he died in 
1620, 

Of Churchmen, first mention must be made of the 
devout and kindly Vicar of Dollar, Thomas Forret, who 
made it a practice, unusual for incumbents in the sixteenth 
century, to preach every Sunday to his parishioners. 
For this he was denounced to the Bishop of Dunkeld as 
a heretic. Forret's friend, Thomas Locklaw, the last 
Romish priest to officiate in the church of Tullibody, 
also held unorthodox views ; and, in particular, renouncing 
celibacy, was married during Lent. Forret and four 
others were charged with being present at the marriage 
and then eating flesh, besides being chief heretics and 
teachers of heresy. Locklaw escaped to England ; but 
Forret was burned in the presence of the King on the 
Castle Hill at Edinburgh, in the spring of 1539. 

Another famous ecclesiastic was Archibald Campbell 
Tait, the son of Crawford Tait of Harviestoun. Archi- 
bald Tait, after being Headmaster of Rugby, Dean of 
Carlisle, and Bishop of London, was enthroned Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury in 1869. His life work, therefore, 
was done beyond the borders of the county, a contrast to 



74 CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

the case of his father, Crawford Tait, who devoted his 
life to the agricultural improvement of Clackmannanshire, 
and, indeed, is said to have almost ruined himself with his 
agricultural experiments. 

To Art, to Science, and to Commerce, the county- 
has contributed many eminent men ; but we must be 
content to select one representative from each sphere. 
David Allan (i 744-1 796), born at Alloa, was enabled 
through the generosity of the county families to study 
art in Rome, where his picture, " The Origin of 
Painting or the Corinthian Maid drawing the shadow 
of her lover," won the gold medal of St Luke's. After 
a few years' portrait-painting in London, he settled in 
Edinburgh and was appointed, in 1786, Master of the 
Edinburgh Academy of Arts. He now devoted his talents 
to depicting the manners, customs, and scenes of his own 
country. The " Scotch Wedding " and the " Highland 
Dame " are perhaps the two best examples of his art. 

Robert Dick (1811-1866) was born at Tullibody, 
and in 1830 set up as a baker in Thurso. He devoted his 
leisure time to the study of nature, and gradually acquired 
a thorough knowledge of the botany and geology of the 
north-eastern corner of Scotland. No works of his were 
ever published ; but his authority was widely recognised 
and Hugh Miller warmly acknowledged his invaluable 
aid. 

John M'Nabb (i 732-1802), born near Dollar, started 
life as a herd-boy. He migrated to London, and during 
a long life spent in sea-faring and ship-owning amassed a 
large fortune. On his death, he left ^56,000 to endow 



ROLL OF HONOUR 75 

"a charity or school for the poor of the parish of Dollar." 
Some difficulty was encountered in interpreting his 
wishes ; but eventually in 1819 the Dollar Institution 
was erected. It has become one of the great schools of 
Scotland, and numbers among its distinguished alumni 
Sir James Dewar, Sir David Gill, and the Swettenhams 
of Malay fame. 



i6. THE CHIEF TOWNS AND VILLAGES 
OF CLACKMANNANSHIRE 

(The figures in brackets after each name give the population in 
191 1, and those at the end of each section are references 
to pages in the text.) 

Alloa (11,893), a police burgh and the largest town in the 
county, is the administrative and commercial centre. At Alloa 
the neap tide rises some 15 feet, the spring tide about 23 feet, the 
port having the additional advantage of double, or, as they 
are locally called, leaky " tides. This return of the flood tide, 
after the water has sunk downwards for a foot or more, appears 
to be due to the constriction of the river channel at Queensferry 
hindering the free egress of the ebbing water. Tradition, scorning 
so mundane a reason, asserts that the extra tide has persistently 
recurred since the day when it was first sent to the help of 
St Mungo, whose vessel had run aground on its way to Stirling. 
Alloa was made an independent port in 1840 and its district now 
includes the smaller ports or creeks of Charlestown, Clackmannan 
Pow, Inverkeithing, Kennetpans, Kincardine, St David's, and 
Stirling. The Board of Trade returns for the district show that 
in 191 1 the value of the total exports — almost exclusively coal — 
to foreign countries was £Siy']iS, and the value of the total 
imports from foreign countries was ^/^i 70,440, of which wood and 
timber accounted for ^128,450, stones and slates for ^^41,202. 
The last item first appeared in the returns for 1909 and represents 



CHIEF TOWNS AND VILLAGES 11 

stone imported at Limekilns tor the Rosyth Naval Base. In 
recent years Alloa has benefited greatly by the munificence of the 
Paton family, (pp. 3, 8, 9, ^^^ 25, 37, 4i, 45, 46, 47, 48, 5^, 54, 
58, 62, 64, 69, 74-) 

Alva (4332), a police burgh three miles north of Alloa, is 
engaged in the woollen industry. The name,^formerly spelled 
Alveth, is derived from a Gaelic word atlbheach,'' rocky." (pp. 8, 
23, 29, 43, 45, 50, 51, 52, 64, 69.) 

Cambus, a village at the confluence of the Devon and the 
Fortli, noted for its distillery. The name is Gaelic, " the bend of 
the water." (pp. 26, 46, 64.) 

Clackmannan (1385), a small town on the Black Devon 
river, at the mouth of which river is the creek of Clackmannan 
Pow. The town, now dwindling in size and importance, still claims 
to be considered the county town. At the top of the old cross are 
carved the arms of the Bruce family, whose chief seat for many 
generations was Clackmannan, (pp. 3, 8, 29, 45, 47, 59, 69-) 

Coalsnaughton, a collier village about a mile to the south 
of Tillicoultry. 

Devonside, a village, on the Devon, between Tillicoultry 
and Coalsnaughton. It is united with the latter as a special 
district (pop. 1353) for water and lighting, but Devonside with its 
brick and tile works dates only from the middle of the nineteenth 
century, whereas Coalsnaughton or Coalsnachton has quite a long 
history. 

Dollar (1497), the smallest of the four police burghs, is 
situated close to the point where the Devon enters the county. Its 
beautiful and healthy situation and the educational advantages 
afforded by the Dollar Institution combine to make Dollar a 
residential town rather than an industrial centre. It has extensive 
bleachfields. The famous engineer, James Watt, reported that 
the Devon might be made navigable as far as Dollar at an 



78 



CLACKMANNANSHIRE 



estimated cost of ^^2000 ; but nothing was ever done to carry out 
the scheme, (pp. 8, 22, 25, 37, 53, 54, 56, 64, 69, 74, 75.) 

Forest Mill, a small hamlet on the north margin of the 
Forest at a point where the Clackmannan and Kinross road 
crosses the Black Devon. Michael Bruce, the young author of 
Lochlenjen^ was schoolmaster here in 1766. (p. 136.) 

Kennet, a mining village, one mile east of Clackmannan. 




Dollar Institution 



To the west of the village is Kennet House, the family seat of the 
Bruces of Kennet. (p. 61.) 

Kennetpans, a small village on the shore of Clackmannan 
parish, with a small harbour, (pp. 25, 45.) 

Kilbagie, a small village in Clackmannan parish, was 
formerly noted for its distillery ; but at the present time its only 
industry is paper-making, (pp. 45, 47.) 

Menstrie (667), a village in Alva parish, on the Stirling-to- 
Kinross road, is engaged in the woollen manufacture. Like the 



CHIEF TOWNS AND VILLAGES 79 

other villages and towns along the foot of the Ochils, Menstrie 
has a very beautiful situation, (pp. 8, 23, 29, 43, 60, 64, 71.) 

Sauchie, a village on the Alloa-to-Tillicoultry road. There 
are also the villages of Old Sauchie near the Devon, and New 
Sauchie on the outskirts of Alloa. The population of the special 
scavenging and lighting district of Sauchie is 2844, and the 
people are mostly workers in the coal mines, (pp. 47, 60.) 

Tillicoultry (3105), a police burgh two miles east of Alva 
and, like that town, engaged in the woollen industry. There 
is now little vestige of the stone circle which formerly stood on 
the Cuninghar, a rising ground behind the town. (pp. 8, 23, 29, 
39, 41, 43, 45, 48, 51, 52, 64, 69, 73-) 

Tullibody (838), in the east of Alloa parish, is one of the 
oldest villages in the county. The old church is the mausoleum 
of the Abercrombies and contains many tributes to the various 
members of that distinguished family, (pp. 8, 52, 53, 54, 61, 
73, 74-) 



v> 



KINROSS-SHIRE 



D. c. 



I. County and Shire. Origin and 
Administration of Kinross=shire. 

The origin of the shire of Kinross is lost in antiquity. 
Sir Robert Sibbald, writing at the close of the seventeenth 
century, says that it was made a distinct shire from Fife 
about the year 1426 and contained then only the parishes 
of Kinross, Orwell, and Portmoak. In 1426, Kinross 
was separately represented in parliament, but the shire 
was distinct far earlier, being mentioned in the charters 
of David 11. The very name of the shire indicates that 
this part of the peninsula was regarded as, to some extent, 
separate from the rest, for Kinross means the head or 
mountainous part of the peninsula as contrasted with 
Culross, the back or lowest part. In 1685, ^^^ hereditary 
sheriff of this small shire was the celebrated architect Sir 
William Bruce of Kinross, who was able, by the favour 
of the King, to obtain an Act adding the parishes of Cleish 
and TuUibole. Subsequently, further changes took place ; 
and in 1 891, when the Boundary Commissioners came to 
simplify the county areas, they found only two parishes, 
Orwell and Kinross, completely contained within the 
shire, five other parishes contributing to make up the 

1 See p. 1. 

6—2 



84 KINROSS-SHIRE 

whole. Kinross-shire now contains five parishes : Kinross, 
Orwell, Portmoak, Cleish, and Fossoway, the last-named 
including the older Tullibole. 

Like other counties^, Kinross has a County Council, 
but, as the shire is too small for division, the whole Council 
sits as a District Committee with the representatives of 
the parishes, the latter withdrawing when the business in 
hand is not concerned with highways or public health. 
The county is divided into 20 electoral divisions, each 
returning one member to the County Council. The 
only police burgh in the county is Kinross, but Milnathort 
is a "special district" for water, drainage, scavenging and 
lighting. 

Kinross shares a sheriff-principal with Fife, and a 
sheriff-substitute with Clackmannan. The official head 
of the county is the Lord Lieutenant, who is also President 
of the Territorial Association established by the 1907 
Act. The Territorial force for the county of Kinross is 
G Company of the 7th Battalion of the Argyll and 
Sutherland Highlanders with a strength, in 1912, of one 
officer and 1 1 1 men out of an establishment of three officers 
and 117 men. For the purposes of parliamentary repre- 
sentation the county is united with Clackmannan ; for 
ecclesiastical purposes it is within the presbytery of Kinross 
and the synod of Fife. 

1 See p. 66. 



GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 85 

2. Position and General Character= 
istics. 

The county of Kinross forms part of a peninsula shut 
off from the rest of Scotland by the lofty barrier of the 
Ochils, and consists essentially of a lake basin within a 
rim of hills. One might expect that the most striking 
feature about such a position would be its isolation, more 
particularly since Kinross is one of the few Scottish 
counties not possessing coast-line. But the surrounding 
hills are notched in more than one place, and through 
these notches pass the roads which bring the county into 
touch with the outer world. Were these roads merely 
the paths by which wayfarers might enter or leave a lake 
basin secluded amidst the hills, they would have little 
effect in neutralizing the natural isolation of the position, 
but Kinross happens to lie athwart the Great North Road, 
which, coming from the south through Edinburgh to 
Queensferry, crosses the county to reach Perth and the 
north. Another great highway from Stirling and the 
west enters Kinross by the Devon valley and crosses 
the plain to pass by the Eden Valley to Cupar, St 
Andrews or, by the Tay ferries, Dundee. The inter- 
section of these two great highways has brought to the 
county the advantages which always attend a position 
where traffic is focussed. Such advantages are by no 
means to be estimated merely by the number of persons 
who find employment in handling the traffic and in pro- 
viding for the wants of travellers, though it may be noted 
in this connection that the Census Report of 191 1 returns 



GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 87 

132 men as engaged in the railway service, a not insignifi- 
cant number since Kinross contains a smaller population 
than any other Scottish county. The real advantage of 
the cross-road position is indirect and difficult to evaluate; 
it lies in the fact that the district has better facilities for 
the disposal of its produce, more rapid and more efficient 
means of transport and communication with accessible 
markets, than the resources of the county would, in 
themselves alone, justify. It lies, also, in the stimulus 
imparted to the general life of the community by a constant 
intercourse with outsiders. 

With the exception of coal mining in the extreme 
south, the interests of Kinross are almost entirely agri- 
cultural. Two-thirds of the surface of the county is 
under cultivation, rotation grasses and oats being most 
extensively grown. A peculiar feature about the agri- 
cultural holdings of Kinross is that so many of them are 
occupied by owners. Stock raising is the most important 
industry; there are almost as many cattle as people in the 
plain of Kinross; while, on the surrounding hills, over 
34,000 sheep find excellent pasturage within the county 
boundaries. 



3. Size, Shape, Boundaries and Surface 
Features. 

The total area of the county is 55,849 acres or, 
excluding water, 52,410. Excepting Clackmannanshire, 
Kinross is the smallest county in Britain. The county is 



88 KINROSS-SHIRE 

roughly oval in shape; measuring through the town of 
Kinross, the greatest length from east to west is 13 miles, 
from north to south nearly nine. It is bounded on the 
north and west by Perthshire, on the east and south by 
Fife, while in the south-west, an extension to the borders 
of Clackmannanshire breaks the regularity of the oval 
shape. Occupying the lowest portion of this oval basin 
is Loch Leven, famous for its trout, and, from its historical 
associations, the most interesting of all Scottish lakes. In 
shape resembling somewhat a tilted harp, this lake has a 
surface area of 3406 acres and a periphery of over ten 
miles. Its surface is 350 feet above sea-level and the 
volume of the lake, when the water is at full height, has 
been estimated at 600,000,000 cubic feet. Surrounding 
the lake lies the flat plain of Kinross, most extensive to 
the west, and across this plain flow numerous small 
streams, whose sources are to be found amongst the hills 
engirdling the lake basin. The hills approach the lake 
most closely in the south, where, about a mile from the 
shore, the steep face of Benarty Hill rises to a flat top 
more than 1000 feet above sea-level. The county 
boundary runs for some distance along the crest of the 
hill, here, as often elsewhere, coinciding with the water- 
parting — Kinross-shire being essentially the area draining 
into Loch Leven. Benarty resembles most of the hills 
in the Fife peninsula in having an abrupt descent on its 
western side, where a steep wooded slope overlooks the 
Great North Road and railway, which here cross the 
water-parting at a saddle only 420 feet above sea-level. 
West of this gap, the land rises to the long east-and-west 



SIZE SHAPE BOUNDARIES 89 

ridge of the Cleish Hills, whose highest point, Dumglow, 
is 1 24 1 feet; here again the boundary generally follows 
the water-parting. Over the irregular surface west of 
the Cleish Hills, the boundary continues generally west- 
wards to the Clackmannanshire border, where it turns 
north to the river Devon, up which it passes to the con- 




Benarty from the north, showing the steep western slope 

fluence of the little Glendey burn. This burn runs 
along the southern exit of a transverse pass in the Ochils, 
the pass utilized by the road from Dunning to Muckart. 
Up this pass the county boundary runs towards the 
culminating point (1007 feet), approaching which, it 
strikes eastwards along the crest of the main ridge of the 



90 



KINROSSSHIRE 



Ochils. Here is Innerdouny Hill (1521 feet), the highest 
point in Kinross. East of this, the boundary follows a 
somewhat irregular course over generally falling ground 
until, at a point where the three counties of Fife, Perth 
and Kinross meet, it drops into the valley leading to 
Glen Farg and Perth. This valley is the exit used by the 
Great North Road and the railway which entered the 
county at the gap between the Cleish and Benarty Hills. 




Glen Farg 

The boundary line, having dropped into this valley, turns 
south-east towards the lofty Lomond Hills, following the 
course of the little Carmore burn, one of the head streams 
of the river Eden. In the gap between the Lomonds and 
the north-east extension of the Ochils, the water-parting, 
dividing the Eden basin from that of Loch Leven, is of 
very low elevation, being, indeed, less than 50 feet above 
the level of the lake. Having crossed this divide, the 



SIZE SHAPE BOUNDARIES 91 

boundary line winds among the hills so as to include 
the Bishop Hill (1492 feet) wholly in Kinross but to 
exclude the twin peaks of the Lomonds. It then descends 
to Auchmuirbridge, beneath whose arches flows the river 
Leven carrying the surplus waters of Loch Leven to the 
sea. From Auchmuirbridge to Benarty the boundary line 
was readjusted by the Commissioners in 189 1. It now 
follows the New Cut, i.e. the present channel of the 
river Leven, for two miles, after which it circuitously 
approaches the crest of Benarty. As we trace the course 
of the county boundary, it is impressed upon us that 
the oval plain of Kinross is upon all sides environed 
with hills — the Ochils in the north-west, the Lomonds in 
the east, Benarty and the Cleish Hills in the south — but 
that, between these hills, low saddles or deep-cut passes 
provide easy means of ingress and egress. 

The plain of Kinross is more extensive to the west 
of Loch Leven, and it is, therefore, across the western 
plain that the largest streams of the county flow. 
Numerous burns from the Ochils are gathered up by 
the North Queich, which rises in Innerdouny Hill and, 
after a course of some six miles, enters Loch Leven north 
of Kinross. Immediately south of the town, the lake is 
entered by the South Queich, whose course is longer than 
that of the North Queich but whose volume is not in- 
creased by so many tributary streams. Skirting the 
northern foot of the Cleish Hills is the Pow Burn, an 
aflluent of the Gairney Water, which drains the southern 
portion of the county. 



92 KINROSS-SHIRE 



4. Geology'. 

The disposition of the hills in a rim round the basin 
of Loch Leven affords the clue to the character of the 
rocks of Kinross. The rocks which underlie the plain 
surrounding the lake are sandstones, generally of a dark 
brick-red colour but with intercalations of white, yellow, 
and other tints, belonging to the Upper Old Red Sandstone 
group. There are few good exposures of the rock on 
the plain itself; but, where it slopes upward to the hills, 
the sandstones may be studied in the channels of the 
brooks or even exposed in the face of the Bishop Hill or 
Benarty. Here false bedding may be noticed, while the 
sandstones, besides being studded with flat pellets of reddish 
clay, often contain fragmentary fish remains. Sandstone 
is comparatively easily disintegrated; hence any district 
where sandstone underlies the soil has usually been worn 
down, by the long-continued action of denuding agents, 
to a level lower than the circumjacent country. The 
average elevation of the plain of Kinross is not much 
more than 400 feet while the hills around never fail to 
reach beyond 1000 feet above sea-level, being built ot 
more resistant rock, mainly the non-sedimentary rocks 
known as igneous or eruptive. Igneous rocks may be 
divided into two groups: volcanic and plutonic. Volcanic 
rocks, such as lavas, have been ejected through some orifice 
or fissure in the earth's crust and have cooled compara- 
tively rapidly at the earth's surface. Plutonic rocks, 

^ See p. II. 



GEOLOGY 93 

those which cooled slowly at a depth below the surface, 
are crystalline to a higher degree than volcanic rocks, and 
have only become exposed by the removal through denu- 
dation of the overlying material. Plutonic rocks are sub- 
divided according to the form taken by the cooling mass ; 
the form being determined by the shape of the cavity into 
which the molten material was injected. Where the 
rock simply forced its way up some line of weakness, it 
cools either in the shape of a plug, and is called a "boss"; 
or, if the line extends horizontally, it cools in the shape 
of a wall, and is called a "dyke." But sometimes the 
molten material penetrates, more or less horizontally, 
between the layers of stratified rock, spreading out in a 
sheet, when it is called a "sill." Examples of all these 
forms may be found in Kinross. Benarty is a great sill 
of dolerite (or greenstone), protecting the underlying 
sandstone. The Bishop Hill is part of a similar, but 
much more extensive sill, which, resting on and pene- 
trating rocks of the lower Carboniferous series, forms 
the roughly circular mass of the Lomonds. The Cleish 
Hills consist of smaller sills considerably reduced in size, 
and so detached from each other, by denudation. Cowden 
Hill (933 feet) in this district is, however, a volcanic neck, 
that is, an orifice or funnel, drilled in the earth's crust by 
the volcanic explosion, up which the lava wells towards 
the crater. Subsequently the crater becomes choked with 
a varied assortment of fragmentary material, usually pene- 
trated by dykes or veins of igneous origin. There are 
few of these volcanic necks in Kinross. The neck at 
Cowden Hill is filled with a greenish volcanic agglomerate 



94 KINROSS-SHIRE 

and contains a plug of basalt. The Ochils, though com- 
posed mainly of igneous rock, are different in character 
from the Bishop, Benarty, and Cleish Hills. They are 
built up of thick sheets of agglomerates and lavas, the 
latter being the molten material ejected to the surface 
during the volcanic period contemporaneous with the 
deposition of the Lower Old Red Sandstone, while 
the former consists of fragmentary material due mainly 
to volcanic explosions. Penetrating this main mass of 
andesitic lavas and agglomerates are, in some places, found 
later intrusions of igneous magma, mostly dykes. One 
of notable length, starting to the south of Dochrie Hill 
in Kinross, runs along the southern slope of the Ochils 
in a north-easterly direction for a distance of 30 miles or 
more. 

In Kinross the geological events of the Ice Age have 
considerably modified the topography. The great mass 
of the ice-sheet, grinding slowly eastward or south-east- 
ward over the land, removed the most prominent irregu- 
larities, and smoothed and polished the rocks over which 
it passed. Thus to-day the hills retain a characteristically 
undulating form, and here and there scratches on the 
rock surface indicate the direction in which the ice moved. 
The low ground, when the ice melted away, was left 
clothed with a thick blanket of decomposed material, 
which had been swept downwards from the hills by the 
ice. This material, generally a clayey matrix full of 
fragmentary material, is known as Boulder Clay or Till, 
and is distributed irregularly over the whole of the Kinross 
plain, stretching also up the valleys of the Ochils, where 



GEOLOGY 



95 



it can be seen terraced and trenched by the descending 
streams. Over the plain itself the Boulder Clay is often 
found in smooth oval-shaped ridges known as drumlins. 
The ice also brought down great boulders, carrying them 
onward until, with the melting of the ice, they were 
dropped on rocks of quite a different kind. Many such 




A Farmstead among the Ochils 



boulders may be noticed in Kinross, especially on the 
Cleish Hills, where their character shows them to be 
gneisses or schistose rocks from the Highlands. Again, 
streams issuing from the glacier laid down fan-like deposits 
of sand and gravel. As the glacier retreated, these 
deposits followed, so that the deposits of successive periods 



96 KINROSS-SHIRE 

formed in time a continuous gravel ridge, known as an 
"esker." One to the south-west of the town of Kinross, 
known locally as Drungie Knowes, can be traced for 
about two miles. Besides the eskers, irregular mounds 
or short ridges of water-deposited gravel or sand, called 
"kames," occur frequently in the Kinross plain, notably 
near Coldrain. Both the eskers and the kames overlie 
the Boulder Clay, but are less widely distributed than it. 
The deposition of these glacial deposits formed 
numerous basins on the irregular surface and left the old 
lines of drainage partially obliterated. The basins filled 
with water and became lakes. The smaller ones — indeed, 
almost all — have since become converted into peat mosses, 
but Loch Leven remains as a conspicuous example. 
This loch, though still the largest lake of the Scottish 
lowlands, was once much larger. The flat terraces of 
alluvium, over which its waters once spread, rise to a height 
of at least 60 feet above its present level, and stretch 
from Milnathort in the north-west to Auchmuir in the 
south-east. This would give the lake an area of 
at least 5000 acres, about half as large again as its 
present size. The contraction in size is due partly 
to natural and partly to artificial causes. Besides the 
natural silting up of the lake, the overflow of the water, 
escaping by the river Leven through a narrow defile at 
Auchmuirbridge, has at this place so cut down its channel 
as to reduce considerably the height of the loch. Secondly, 
between 1826 and 1836, a new channel, some three 
miles in length, was cut at a lowel level from the loch 
to Auchmuirbridge. This, "the New Cut," permanently 



GEOLOGY 



97 



reduced the level of Loch Leven by 4.^ feet. Power to 
cause a further reduction in level has been given to the 
mill ow^ners along the river, who also benefit by the pre- 
vention of the disastrous floods which, previous to these 
operations, were frequent in winter time in the lower 
Leven valley. The depth of Loch Leven is, in two 
pits, greater than 60 feet, but this is more than twice 




The New Cut, looking east 

the average depth. It contains seven islands, whose 
sandy structure shows them to be the tops of kames. St 
Serf's Island is the largest, containing some 80 acres ; 
while the only other island of any size is Castle Island, 
containing eight acres and situated off the town of 
Kinross. 



D. c. 



98 KINROSS-SHIRE 

5. Natural History. 

Two-thirds of the county is under cultivation, with 
oats as the chief crop. Where the July temperature is 
below 56° F. and the rainfall exceeds 34 inches per 
annum, wheat ceases to be a regular crop; and as the 
July temperature of this shire is but slightly above this 
minimum and the rainfall is certainly greater than 
34 inches, practically no wheat is sown. Cultivation in 
favourable localities on the southern slopes of the Ochils 
may be carried up to the looo-feet contour line; but 
more generally the cultivated area passes about the 800- 
feet level into the zone of hill pasture. The lower 
slopes of the hill pasture are clothed with mixed grasses 
and, on the drier knolls, with whin. The upper slopes 
have Nardus stricta dominant, MoUnio varia abundant, 
and on the drier knolls the whin is often replaced by 
heather. Where the rock is not covered with boulder 
clay and the soil is formed from the weathering of the 
black basaltic crags, the vegetation is richer; and Dr 
Smith mentions that a list of 40 species of plants was 
made in August 1900 on the crags of Dumglow (Cleish 
Hills) at a height of looo feet with a south-west 
exposure. This list includes Festuca ovina^ Geranium 
sanguineum^ Trifolium pratense^ Anthyllh vulneraria^ Rosa 
spinosissima, Pimpinella sax'ifraga^ Scabtosa succisa and 
Veronica officinalis. 

The woods of the county aie coniferous (chiefly Scots 
pine) at Knock Wood, Tilliery Plantation and Leven- 
mouth Plantation; birch on the hillside north of Scotland- 



NATURAL HISTORY 



99 



well ; oak on the west foot of Benarty ; and mixed at 
Blairadam and in the grounds of Kinross House. Kinross 
House has some very fine beech trees. 

The rabbit, the hedgehog, the vole, and the brown 
rat are abundant in the county; much less common are 
the hare and the fox, while the badger and the otter tend 




Birch woods overlooking Scotlandwell 



to become exterminated. The pole cat, formerly found 
here, has vanished; and, indeed, is nearly, if not quite, 
extinct in Scotland. The shire is rich in bird life ; 
among the rarer species Alcedo ispida (the kingfisher) and 
Loxia curvirostra (the crossbill) may be mentioned; while 
the islets of Loch Leven are veritable sanctuaries for wild 

7—2 



100 KINROSS-SHIRE 

fowl. Formerly there were people who, engaging boats 
at Kinross ostensibly for fishing, would visit St Serf's Inch 
for the purpose of robbing the nests; but this was stopped 
by forbidding the boats to land except on a small fenced- 
off portion of that island. Some of the birds which at 
one time used to breed on the islands are no longer found. 
Sir Robert Sibbald, at the close of the seventeenth century, 
mentions a small island near St Serf's Inch called the 
Bittern's Bower ; but the bittern is not known now to 
breed in any part of Scotland. It may be of interest to 
give the other birds in Sir Robert's list : — the common 
heron, snipe, teal, water-rail, kingfisher, coot, swan, 
sundry gulls, wild geese and wild ducks. Loch Leven is 
also the home of Anthicus Scoticus, one of the seven species 
of beetles peculiar to Scotland. 



6. Climate'. 

Kinross and Clackmannan, adjacent to each other and 
both so small in area, have identical climates except for 
the slight differences caused by the topographical features. 
It is the influence of the hills surrounding the shire of 
Kinross that produces the slight peculiarities of the 
climate. A range of hills obstructs the free passage of 
the wind. Above the hill-tops the air, of course, blows 
freely onward, and causes an up-draught of that lower air 
checked by the ridge. On the windward side of the 
hills, therefore, the air is obliquely ascending. As it 

1 See p. 3+. 




Rainfall Map of Scotland ""'""■""'"""•■'■" 
{By Andrezv Watt, M.A.) 



102 KINROSS-SHIRE 

ascends, the pressure of the overlying atmosphere is re- 
duced ; and the air expanding becomes less dense and, 
therefore, cools. The cooling of the air causes a certain 
amount of precipitation, and hence mountainous and 
hilly country always tends to experience a heavier rainfall 
than the adjacent piedmont plains. This heavy rainfall 
descends upon the windward slopes, as may be clearly seen 
in the rainfall map of Scotland, where the greatest rainfall 
is shown on the western slopes of the mountainous 
country, while that part of the Grampians east of the 
Spey and Tay valleys has, comparatively, a slight rainfall, 
proving that altitude is not so important a factor as 
exposure. In the case of Kinross, the disposition of the 
higher ground itself affects the direction of the prevalent 
winds and, in the absence of official statistics — for the 
Meteorological Office has no station in the county — we 
can only state generally that the west of the county gets 
more rain than the east — Mr Watt gives Blairingone on 
the Clackmannanshire border as having a mean annual 
rainfall of 39*80 inches, while Loch Leven Sluice has 
36*59 — and that the high ground gets more than the low. 
As a result of the combination of these two conditions, 
the Ochil portion in the north-west, the only area within 
the county where the mean annual fall is known to 
exceed 40 inches, has the heaviest rainfall, while the 
amount becomes less as one crosses the county to the 
south-east border, where, on the lower ground, it is as 
little as 35 inches per annum. 

Besides influencing the distribution and amount of 
the rainfall, the high ground also affects the temperature. 



CLIMATE 103 

The parish of Portmoak, for example, has a somewhat 
mild spring since the lofty wall of the Bishop Hill shelters 
it from the cold east winds, which often blow over Fife 
during that part of the year. Though the hills thus 
shelter the land on the lee side, they have in another way 
the effect of lowering the temperature. There is a 
decrease in temperature of i° F. for, roughly, every 300 
feet of elevation'; and hence it is always colder or cooler 
on the hills than in the plains. In winter time winds 
from the north-west, reaching the plain of Kinross after 
passing over the often snowclad Ochils, are bitterly cold. 
When the figures are adjusted to sea-level, the average 
January temperature for the county is below 38°, that 
for July is 581°. 

The presence of a large sheet of water and, before 
the extensive drainage operations of the early nineteenth 
century, the bogs and the damp undrained soil of the 
low-lying plain gave rise to a humid and somewhat 
unhealthy climate. Ebenezer Erskine, who lost four of 
his children during his ministry at Portmoak, speaks of 
the situation of the manse as "unwholesome," and it is 
a common remark in the New Statistical Account that 
ague, rheumatism, and pulmonary complaints were widely 
prevalent in the parishes of the county before the land 
was improved by drainage. The humidity of the atmo- 
sphere is still comparatively high; but the sufferers from 
these ailments are not now more numerous in the shire 
than in equal areas elsewhere in Britain. 



104 KINROSS-SHIRE 

7. Ag^riculture. 

Agriculture and stock raising are the chief occupations 
of the people of the county. One out of every three 
occupied men finds woric on the farms, the total number 
so engaged in 191 1 being 756 men and 84 women. 
There are 298 holdings of an average size of Ii6'4 acres, 
and of these quite an unusually large proportion is occu- 
pied by the owners, as the following table shows : 

Proportion of Cultivated Land occupied by Owners^ 1 9 1 1 







Number of hold 


ings 


Acreage of land 


Divisions 




occupied by owners, 


occupied by owners 


of 
Scotland 




expressed as a per- 
centage of total num- 
ber of holdings 


expressed as a per- 
centage of total 
acreage 


S.W. 




10-79 




11-38 


N.W. 




4-63 




I 2'26 


S.E. 




12-68 




12-45 


N.E. (including 


Ki 


nross) 7-80 




I I 64 


Kinross 




20-81 




2979 



Corresponding to the 2979 of Kinross, the percentage 
for all Scotland is 11-76. 

During the last hundred years or so, there has been 
some consolidation and enlargement of holdings, but the 
high proportion of the land occupied by owners seems 
always to have been a feature in the county. It is not, 
perhaps, surprising that this was the cause of delay in 
undertaking agricultural improvements. "The whole 
county," says the New Statistical Account^ " till a 
very recent period was wild and barren, which circum- 
stance has been attributed to the local peculiarity of the 



AGRICULTURE 



105 



district being divided into small farms, almost every single 
farm being a separate property and generally possessed by 
its owner." What is, however, remarkable is that the 
late commencement and slow progress of improvement 
should be ascribed not to the owners' lack of capital but 
to their lack of energy. It has generally been held that 
one of the greatest advantages of a system of peasant 




The Well at Scotlandwell 

proprietors is that the farmers have the incentive to work 
with greater assiduity and diligence as owners than they 
would as tenants; yet of Portmoak parish we read: 
"The chief obstacle in the way of farming has been the 
practice of small proprietors working along with their 
servants. As they do not feel themselves called upon to 
work hard, the servants imitate their example." The 



106 KINROSS-SHIRE 

Agrarian Revolution, however, when it did reach Kinross, 
altered completely the appearance of the county. Before, 
only a small proportion of the land was in regular culti- 
vation. This was called "infield"; the "outfield" was 
the surrounding land in its natural state or just broken up 
and under no regular cultivation. Much of the country 
was wild unsheltered moor, the land was not enclosed, 
and the houses of the cottars were placed irregularly in 
the open fields. Sour peat bogs were numerous and the 
undrained land held stagnant and injurious water. The 
great need was better drainage, which, for the southern 
portion of the county, was obtained by the widening and 
deepening (1811-1830) of the Pow of Aldie to form 
a complete main drain seven and a half miles in length. 
With what success, let the New Statistical Account tell : 
"The valley of the Gairney and the Pow is now com- 
pletely changed and when viewed from the higher grounds 
forms a beautiful prospect especially to those who were 
acquainted with it in its former state." The lowering of 
the level of Loch Leven by the New Cut gave a greater 
fall and facilitated the work of drainage improvement. 
Gairney Moss, once 50 acres in extent, was converted 
into corn land or planted with trees; the peat bog to the 
south of Aldie was made to yield excellent crops; and, 
indeed, most of the peat mosses in the county were 
drained and put under the plough. They are now 
devoted to the cultivation of potatoes or oats, two crops 
both tolerant of the considerable amount of acid humus 
in such a soil. 

With the improvements in drainage, the introduction 



AGRICULTURE 107 

of a better rotation of crops and the invention and utilisa- 
tion of farm machinery, farming became more profitable, 
and, by the middle of the nineteenth century, almost 
three-fourths of the total area of the county was under 
cultivation. This proportion has now dropped to two- 
thirds, and another notable change is the reversion of 
arable land to permanent pasture, though neither of these 
changes is peculiar to Kinross. There are only two 
counties in Scotland (Fife and Linlithgow) which have 
a greater proportion of their area under cultivation. The 
fluctuations in the amount and direction of agricultural 
effort are shown in the following table : 

Area of Cultivated Land expressed as a Percentage 
of Total Area 

1854 1881 1911 

73 Gt, 66 

Area under various Crops or Grass expressed as a 
Percentage of Total Area under Cultivation 
1854 1881 1911 



Wheat 


I 


— 


— 


Barley 


8 


4 


— 


Oats 


20 


18 


18 


Potatoes 


2 


3 


2 


Turnips 


10 


8 


7 


Rotation Grasses 


37 


36 


34 


Permanent Pasture 


16 


29 


36 



The year 1854 was a good year for fajmers, the 
Crimean War having stopped supplies from Southern 
Russia. This increased the price of grain but did not. 



108 



KINROSS-SHIRE 



indeed, affect the area under cultivation for that year, 
though the high profits naturally led to some increase in 
the area devoted to crops during the next few years. 
The year 1881 may be taken as the end of a period of 
depression ; there had been seven very bad seasons between 
1872 and 1 88 1, and farmers had sustained very heavy 
losses. 




Town Hall, Milnathort 



Where the boulder clay is covered with a deposit of 
sand and gravel, as is usual in the plain of Kinross, the 
resulting soil is light and sharp and requires a liberal use 
of lime. The proportion of grass on every farm is large, 
a good deal of land is kept permanently in grass parks, 
and increasing attention is given to dairy farming. Only 
90 acres are under wheat, an exhausting crop and, owing 



AGRICULTURE 1"9 

to the somewhat severe spring weather, a precarious one. 
The only grain market in the county is at Milnathort. 

Stock raisin? is as important as agriculture. Thirty 
years ago more horses were reared in Kinross in proportion 
to its sfze than in any other Scottish county. The cattle 
number 6655, mostly shorthorns and Ayrshires or crosses 
bred from these. The rapid increase of the population 
in the mining districts of south-west Fife has stimulated 
the dairying industry, much of the milk being sent by 
railway to Dunfermline and other centres. With the 
reversion of arable land to pasture, the number of sheep 
has steadily increased; these, chiefly black-faced or 
Leicesters, now total 34,040. I" former times there 
were few families among the labouring population that 
did not keep one pig or more, but the number of pigs in 
the county has now declined to 850. 

Number of Live Stock in the County per 1000 acres 
1854 1881 1911 



Horses 2 8 

Cattle 147 

Sheep 4^ I 

Piss 2' 



21 2^ 

III 1^7 

532 649 

10 16 



The county is not well wooded, the area under woods 
and plantations being, in 1905, only 2922 acres. Curi- 
ously enough, the most extensive plantations are on the 
Blairadam estate, where, ,n ,733 before the .'-P-;-;!"" 
started, "the estate was little better than a wild unsheltered 
moor, the bleakness of which was increased rather than 
relieved by one solitary tree." 



no KINROSS-SHIRE 

8. Industries and Manufactures. 

Apart from farming and coal-mining, the county has 
practically no special industries of any magnitude. The 
ordinary work is to provide for common every-day needs 
— food, shelter, clothing,and comfort ; the men are engaged 
in the preparation and sale of provisions, in house-building 
and decorating, in the administrative service or in the pro- 
fessions; the women are occupied in domestic service or 
dressmaking. It has already been mentioned that, to deal 
with the traffic that passes through the county, as many 
as 132 men are engaged in the railway service. Similarly 
the figures for other branches connected with the trans- 
port service are comparatively high, there being 35 black- 
smiths in the county while 68 men find work in the 
conveyance of passengers or goods by road. 

In the past several attempts were made to establish 
certain manufactures. In the little village of Kin ness wood 
the manufacture of vellum and parchment was established, 
it is said, by the monks of St Serf. It certainly flourished 
there for a long time and, from the middle of the seven- 
teenth century, used to supply the Register House in 
Edinburgh. The last Census, however, returns only six 
persons as engaged in the manufacture of paper. The 
town of Kinross during the eighteenth century was 
famous for its cutlery. This manufacture was fostered 
by the excellence of the grindstone obtained from a 
quarry whose site can still be recognised by a scar on the 
side of the Bishop Hill. Towards the end of the eigh- 
teenth century, the cutlery industry was killed by the 



INDUSTRIES AND MANUFACTURES 111 

competition of Sheffield, and the people were devoting 
themselves to the manufacture of linen, especially Silesia 
linens. By 1839 this manufacture, unable to compete 
with Dunfermline, had collapsed. More attention was 
now given to the weaving of cotton, which had been 
started about 1809. The New Statistical Account (1839) 




Bishop Hill, showing scar which marks the old 
grindstone quarry 

says: "A great many people are employed in weaving 
cotton, chiefly by the manufacturers of Glasgow, and, 
within the last twelve months, two or three companies 
belonging to Kinross and Milnathort have set agoing the 
manufacture of tartan shawls and plaids which hitherto 
appears to have met with success." This success, how- 
ever, did not last for many years. Later a revival took 



112 KINROSS-SHIRE 

place; and at the present time 129 persons are engaged 
in the woollen industry, the mills and factories being at 
Kinross and Milnathort, while 108 persons work in the 
linen manufacture at Kinross ; but the cotton industry 
has been completely abandoned. 



9. Mines and Minerals. 

Next to agriculture, mining is the most important 
industry in Kinross. The 364 people engaged in this 
industry all live in the extreme south, for the coal of 
Kinross is obtained from the extension of four of the Fife 
coalfields. An outlying basin of the Dunfermline coal- 
field has a breadth of more than a mile on the Blairadam 
estate. The coal has been worked round the maro;in of 
a dolerite sill, especially to the south-east of Blairadam 
House, where two seams are found, ten feet and four 
feet thick respectively. Coal undoubtedly underlies the 
sill but it may prove to be unworkable because of interfer- 
ence with the seams by intrusive igneous material. The 
results of borings, however, have been considered sufficiently 
satisfactory to justify a mineral line being laid from Kelty 
station to the estate. The extreme northern border of 
the Kelty coalfield, and further east the Capeldrae field, 
cross the border of Kinross. The Capeldrae seams have 
been greatly broken up by faults and igneous intrusions, 
which have rendered mining costly and troublesome. 
The fourth field, that of Kinglassie, reaches North 
Bogside, and is also connected by a mineral line with 



MINES AND MINERALS 113 

Kelty station. Separate figures cannot be obtained for 
the Kinross-shire output of coal, since the returns are 
included with those of Fifeshire; but it is certainly 
increasing and the Census Report for 191 1 shows that 
313 miners reside within the county as compared with 
186 in 1 90 1. No other mining or quarrying is carried 
on ; but sand and gravel are easily obtained in the plains, 
and the value of the 12,458 tons dug in 191 1 was 

^2212. 



10. Fishing. 

Loch Leven has long been famous for its fish and 
Kinross is a great centre for anglers. Excellent food 
abounds in the lake, which is especially noted for trout 
and perch. At one time char [Salmo alpinus) was fre- 
quently caught, both Sibbald and the author of the Old 
Statistical Account m^ention that fish as being abundant, 
but the last recorded capture was in 1837. It is, how- 
ever, the Loch Leven trout (.S. levenensii) that has made the 
loch most famous. It is still disputed whether this fish is 
a distinct species or merely a superior variety of the 
common trout [S. fario) resulting from the better quality 
and greater quantity of the food supply. The chief 
differences between 5. levenensis and S. fario are in the 
number of the caecal appendages, in the markings of the 
body, and in the colour of the flesh. The caecal appen- 
dages in levenensis vary from 60 to 80, in fario they never 
exceed 50. Hence the Loch Leven trout has been named 

D. c. 8 



114 KINROSS-SHIRE 

S. caecifer. The upper parts of the body of the Loch 
Leven fish are usually greenish-olive, sometimes brownish, 
and are marked with a great number of round or 
X-shaped dark brown spots. In fario again red spots 
are general and numerous. So also the adipose fin in 
levenensis is never tipped with red, which is universally 
the case with fario. The flesh of the latter is whitish, 
that of levenensis is a deep pink. The Loch Leven trout 
is also much more slender in form and the hinder part is 
more tapering, the maxillary is much narrower and feebler, 
the pectoral fins more pointed, the caudal more deeply 
incised and with the lobes more pointed than in the same 
size o^ fario. Dr Francis Day, however, considered the 
Loch Leven trout to be a variety, not of the common 
trout, but of the salmon, or sea, trout (5. trutta). The 
maximum length of S. levenensis is 20 inches from eye to 
fork. It is a non-migratory species, peculiar to Loch 
Leven and a few other lochs of Southern Scotland and 
Northern England ; but has been artificially introduced 
into many lakes not only in this country but also through- 
out the world — even as far away as Tasmania. 

The fishings of the loch were let to tacksmen till 
1876, when the Loch Leven Angling Association was 
formed. The rent in 1780 was only about ;^20, by 
1838 it had risen to £lo\\ and at the present time the 
lessees, the Tay Salmon Fisheries Company, Ltd., pay 
^1200 a year with the right to put 36 boats on the lake. 
The fishing season extends from the 31st March to the 
7th September. Only rod fishing is permitted ; most 
anglers use the fly, but some try trolling with the minnow. 



FISHING 



115 



The catch for the season of 1910, a record one, was 
41,064 trout of an aggregate weight of 29,200 lbs. These 
figures may be compared with the average annual catch 
for the years 1895-99 : 16,746 trout of 11,421 lbs. 
weight. The heaviest trout ever caught in the lake 




An Angling Club starting from Loch Leven pier 

scaled nearly 10 lbs., but the average weight is about i lb. 
Some years ago — especially in 1902 and 1903 — great 
trouble was caused by Canadian weed, which not only 
interfered with the angling but also rendered rowing very 
difficult in the shallow waters. 



8—2 



116 KINROSS-SHIRE 

II. History. 

The history of the county has always centred round 
Loch Leven. It seems probable that, in prehistoric times, 




Castle Island, Loch Leven 

the Castle Island was the site of a crannog, or stockaded 
lake-dwelling ; and the stone work of another has been 
located near the shore ot the little Kinross peninsula, 
where a beacon can be seen marking the position. These 
crannogs, peculiar to Celtic countries, were constructed 



HISTORY 117 

on islands or even shallows in the lochs. In the latter 
case, the site was built up by stones, brushwood, or other 
material, to make occupation possible. The occupied 
area was circumscribed by one or more lines of wooden 
piles, and often connected with the shore by a causeway. 
An ancient causeway does connect Castle Island with 
the shore ; and it is said to be possible, in a dry season, 
for a man to wade along it. Security from attack was 
one essential requirement for prehistoric settlements ; and 
hence, besides the crannogs in the lakes, evidences of 
other defensive works are found to-day in the mounds 
encircling the crests of some of our hills. There are, for 
example, traces of an ancient fort on the south-west 
shoulder of Benarty ; and of another on the top of 
Dumglow, the highest of the Cleish Hills. Besides forts, 
camps, and crannogs, the weapons of the early inhabitants 
and their ornaments are sometimes unearthed, while the 
sepulchral monuments, raised over their dead, are scattered 
throughout the country. There are two "standing 
stones " adjacent to the farm of Orwell near the north 
end of Loch Leven ; urns filled with burnt bones have 
been discovered at Holeton, another farm in the same 
parish ; while, till the stones were removed to build field 
dykes, a great cairn stood on Cairn-a-vain, a hill north- 
north-west from Milnathort. Inside this cairn was dis- 
covered, about the year 1810, a rude stone cist containing 
an urn full of charred bones and charcoal. Agricola's 
legions most likely visited the shire ; and the discovery 
in 1857 of a hoard of 700 Roman coins near the town 
of Kinross may, unless the coins represent a collection 



118 KINROSS-SHIRE 

subsequent to the Roman withdrawal, be an indication of 
the passage of a Roman army. 

Since the prehistoric times, however, the history of 
the county has mainly been the history of the two largest 
islands in Loch Leven. These islands are both at some 
distance from the shore and the people who lived on them 
would be isolated, quiet, and safe. The one island became 
the seat of a famous monastery ; the other the site of a 
castle, to the Constable of which important State prisoners 
were committed for safe keeping. The ecclesiastical 
settlement on St Serf's Island is said to have been founded 
by Brude V, the last of the Pictish kings. Servanus was 
the first superior or prior, but it is impossible to discover 
whether or not this Servanus is the same St Serf of Culross 
whose labours converted the Picts. The Register of St 
Andrews says of this foundation: "Brude, filius de 
Ergard, Pictorum rex dedit insulam de Loch Levin, 
Deo Omnipotenti, Sancto Servano, et Keledeis heremetis 
ibi commorantibus et Deo servientibus." By the tenth 
century the name of Culdees had become established as 
that of the order of ecclesiastics to whom the priory of 
St Serf's Island, as well as numerous other establishments 
in Scotland and Ireland, belonged. Their monastic rules 
were not, however, of a very strict order and each 
monastery appears to have been practically independent. 
For a time they were in great favour with the monarchs; 
Macbeth and his queen Gruoch granted to the hermits of 
St Serf's Island — the oldest Culdee establishment in Scot- 
land—the lands of Kirkness and Portmoak ; and what 
is now the old burial ground of Portmoak is the site of a 



HISTORY 



119 



monastery which was a secondary establishment ot the 
island community, whose priors and canons, indeed, often 
resided at Kinnesswood. Other bequests followed, but 
later came the disputes as to rule and discipline between the 
Culdees of the ancient Celtic Church and the clergy of the 
Romish church, first introduced by Malcolm and Margaret. 
Towards the close of the tenth century the priory of 




The Chapel, St Serf's Island 

Loch Leven and its possessions were made over to the 
Bishop of St Andrews on condition that he should supply 
the monks with food and raiment; and, in 1145, David I 
issued a declaration bestowing the island of Loch Leven 
on the Canons Regular of St Andrews that they might 
establish a Canonical Order there, and decreeing, further- 
more, that all the Culdees who should not consent to 
live as Regulars should be expelled. The Canons of 



120 KINROSS-SHIRE 

St Andrews held the island till the Reformation, when 
it passed into the possession of the Earl of Morton. It 
is noteworthy that the old Culdee community at Loch 
Leven gives us the oldest Scottish library catalogue, which 
is preserved in the Register of St Andrews. Remains 
of the old chapel on St Serf's Island can still be seen. 
The old building is 30 feet by 20 feet, and the door on 
the south side is 8 feet high. The ruins were explored 
in 1877 ^^^ ^^^ skeletons were discovered, supposed to 
be those of St Ronan and Patrick Graham. Graham 
was Bishop of St Andrews at the time when that see 
was erected into an archbishopric, and was buried on 
St Serf's Island, 1484. 

The Castle Island appears to have been inhabited from 
the remotest period of antiquity. Congal, the son of the 
Pictish king Dongart, is said to have built a stronghold 
on the island, and a castle there was certainly a royal 
residence during the first half of the thirteenth century. 
This castle was twice besieged by the English, in 1301 
and in 1334. On the second occasion the English leader. 
Sir John de Strivelin, encamped his force on the conse- 
crated ground of Kinross kirkyard, a proceeding which 
Wyntoun, who tells the story of the siege, strongly re- 
probated. From Lent till summer the attacking force 
strove to reach the enemy, but the Scots, under the able 
command of Sir Alan de Vipont, repulsed their efforts 
and the siege was ultimately abandoned. Buchanan, 
followed by Hailes, says that the English attempted to 
submerge the castle by damming the issue of the water 
at the south-east end of Loch Leven, but the garrison. 



HISTORY 121 

in the absence of the English leaders at the festival of 
St Margaret in Dunfermline, sallied forth and broke 
down the dam, the escaping waters sweeping away the 
English encamped on the plain below. Buchanan's story 
is, however, improbable, partly from the difficulty of the 
undertaking and partly because a flood which would have 
submerged the Castle Island would also have swamped 
St Serf's. Had this really occurred, it would most 
certainly have been mentioned by Wyntoun — in later 
years, Prior of the establishment there — on whom the 
sacrilege of such a proceeding would have made a great 
impression. Yet Wyntoun has no word at all about any 
attempt to submerge the castle. 

Apart from this siege, the most interesting incidents 
in the history of the castle are connected with the long 
succession of State prisoners who were immured within 
its walls. The first of these seems to have been John 
of Lorn, Lord of the Isles. In 1363 David II sent as 
prisoners to the castle his nephew Robert the Steward 
of Scotland and Robert's son, the " Wolf of Badenoch." 
The next prisoner of note was Archibald, fifth Earl of 
Douglas, confined here by the orders of James I in 1429. 
Patrick Graham, the first Archbishop of St Andrews, 
spent the last few years of his noble and beneficent life 
imprisoned within the castle walls. But the most pathetic 
figure ever ferried across to the island prison is that of 
Mary Queen of Scots. It was on the i6th day of June, 
1567, after Bothwell's escape and the surrender of the 
royal forces to the confederate lords at Carberry Hill, that 
she was brought, through Edinburgh, as a prisoner to 



122 KINROSS-SHIRE 

Lochleven Castle. The laird of the castle was Sir 
William Douglas. His mother was also there, who 
before her marriage had been Lady Margaret Erskine. 
Other members of the Douglas family in the castle were 
Sir William's brother George, his wife and sisters, and 
Willie Douglas, the sixteen year old page of Lady 
Margaret. As the mother by James V of James Stewart, 
Lady Margaret had cherished the hope of seeing her son 
crowned king and she was, in consequence, the bitter 
enemy of Mary. The provision made for the poor 
queen was at first shamefully inadequate until her own 
fascination or Moray's orders won for her more fitting 
treatment. Mary, moreover, was harassed by visits from 
the lords who came to extort from her consent either to 
a divorce or an abdication. The story of her imprison- 
ment and of her attempts at escape has often been told ; 
how, after one plan had been foiled, she, changing clothes 
with a laundress, entered the boat only to be discovered 
by the boatmen midway to Kinross and brought back to 
the castle ; how George Douglas, who had assisted this 
attempt, was then expelled from the castle but remained 
in the vicinity of Kinross to scheme and work on the 
queen's behalf ; and how, by the help of Willie Douglas, 
the '' Roland Graeme " of Scott's Ahhot^ she eventually 
succeeded in escaping. The chance came on the evening 
of Sunday, the 2nd May, 1568. Waiting on Sir William 
at supper, Willie managed to remove the keys and to slip 
unnoticed with them from the room. While the laird 
lingered over his wine, Mary, Willie, and one of Mary's 
maids ran down the stairs and, locking the gate behind 



HISTORY 123 

them, gained the boats. The boy had taken the pre- 
caution to leave but one of these with the chain unjammed, 
and in this the fugitives row^ed to where George Douglas, 
Lord Seton and a troop of horse were waiting on the 
shore. 

Soon after Mary became a prisoner in England, 
the Earl of Northumberland plotted to rescue her, and 
failed. He fled to Scotland, where at Elizabeth's request 
he was imprisoned. For three years he remained a 
prisoner in Lochleven Castle, till in 1572 he was handed 
over to the English, and beheaded at York. The last 
State prisoner in the castle was Robert Pitcairn, Arch- 
dean of St Andrews, who was implicated in the Raid 
of Ruthven, and was imprisoned for a short time in 

1583- 

In later days the only event in Kinross-shire of 
national importance is connected with ecclesiastical affairs. 
The Patronage Act of 17 12 caused much trouble in the 
Church of Scotland. In 1731 Thomas Erskine, minister 
of Portmoak for nearly 30 years, was translated to 
Stirling, and there he preached a notable sermon advocat- 
ing the right of congregations to choose their ministers. 
Erskine and three other ministers were suspended by 
the General Assembly, and in December, 1733, they 
met at Gairney Bridge to constitute themselves the 
Associate Presbytery. This was the origin of the 
Secession Church, which — in spite of disputes and 
divisions into Burghers and Anti-Burghers, Auld Lichts 
and New Lichts — spread and prospered till in 1847 
it was able to contribute 384 of the 497 congregations 



124 KINROSS-SHIRE 

which then combined as the United Presbyterian 
Church. 




Monument to the founders of the Secession Church 
at Gairney Bridge 



ARCHITECTURE 



125 



12. Architecture . 

Lochleven Castle is a good example of the type 
of building erected during the fourteenth century. It 
is a plain rectangular structure with walls of great 
thickness confining an area of some 40 square yards. 
The floors are vaulted, and the roof is crowned by a 
parapet resting on corbels but without machicolations. 




Queen Mary's Tower, Lochleven Castle 



There are not, however, bartizans at all the corners, 
for it was, presumably, not thought necessary to defend 
by such a turret the corner nearest the interior of the 
courtyard. A peculiar feature is the position of the 
entrance door, which, instead of being on the first, 
is placed on the second floor, and thus it is possible 

1 See p, 55 



126 KINROSS-SHIRE 

to reach the first floor only by descending the interior 
staircase, A parapet walk runs round the wall ot 
enceinte ; and, in the south-east corner of this wall, 
is a round tower, built, probably by Sir Robert Douglas, 
about 1 54 1. When Mary was on the island, it con- 
tained a more extensive range of buildings than those 
whose remains still exist ; and there is evidence that 
the usual development by building round the inside of the 
wall of enceinte had taken place. 

Burleigh Castle, close to Milnathort, probably dates 
from the latter half of the fifteenth century. Formerly 
there appear to have been a keep and a wall of enceinte 
with buildings added thereto, but nothing now remains 
except the ruins of the old keep and a circular tower 
or gatehouse connected with the keep by a portion of the 
west wall. In the angle between the tower and the wall 
is placed a turret containing the stairs leading to the 
upper floors. The circular tower is the most interesting 
portion of the building. The basement walls of this 
gatehouse are pierced by large horizontal embrasures ; 
and the room on the first floor, resting on the vaulted 
basement roof, is square internally. The second floor 
is square also externally, being boldly corbelled out. 
The gables are finished with flat skews — a very unusual 
feature — instead of the customary corbie steps, and both 
of the skew-puts bear a device. On the one facing the 
modern road is the red rose of the Balfours ; on the other 
is the date of the tower, 1582, above a shield carrying the 
Balfour arms and the initials M. B. and 1. B. These 
stand for Margaret Balfour, the heiress of the Balfours 



ARCHITECTURE 



127 



(to whom the Burleigh property had been granted by 
James II in 1446) and for Sir James Balfour of Mount- 
quhane, her husband. Their son, Sir Michael Balfour, 
after a successful career in the diplomatic service, was 
raised to the peerage by James VI in 1606 as Lord 
Balfour of Burleigh. Later the peerage was in abeyance 
for nearly 150 years until the Bruces of Kennet in 1868 




Burleigh Castle, Milnathort 



established their claim to the title. Both Lochleven and 
Burleigh Castles are now the property of Sir Basil Mont- 
gomery. Another keep of about the same period as 
Burleigh is Arnot Tower near Auchmuirbridge. In 
spite of its somewhat superior masonry work, the building 
is in a very dilapidated state. It was for more than 600 
years the family seat of the Arnots of that ilk. 

On the northern slopes of the Cleish Hills are situated 



128 KINROSS-SHIRE 

two castles, Cleish and Dowhill, dating from the sixteenth 
century. The former, built on the L plan, after falling 
into such a state of disrepair that the roof had entirely 
collapsed, was restored and made habitable by the pro- 
prietor, Mr Harry Young, in 1845. As a result, it has 
been greatly altered ; the thick walls have been thinned, 
the entrances changed, the windows enlarged, the. vaulted 
floor removed, but the external features were preserved as 
far as possible, and, in particular, there still stands, on the 
south side, the great gable which rises with three broad 
offsets to a height of some 70 feet. The estate 
came into the possession of Sir James Colville of Ochiltree 
in the early part of the sixteenth century ; and his 
descendant, Robert Colville of Cleish, was created Lord 
Colville of Ochiltree by Charles II in 1651. The line 
became extinct on the death of the third lord in 1723. 
Dowhill Castle also fell into disrepair and, since it was 
used for a time as a quarry, it is now in such a ruinous 
condition that we can only say that it appears to have 
been built on the Z plan. The ground floor and a 
portion of the side walls of the first floor remain, but 
the chief feature of interest in the castle is the superior 
finish of the interior stonework. 

Tullibole Castle, one mile east of the Crook of Devon, 
is an old baronial mansion of the seventeenth century. 
As in that quieter time there was less need for defensive 
arrangements, the embattled roof characteristic of the 
earlier castles has almost disappeared and the interior 
accommodation is much better, notably in the provision 
of staircases. The only part of the roof adapted for 



ARCHITECTURE 



129 



defence is a small battlement, supported on bold corbels 
and overhanging the doorway of the square tower at the 
south-east corner. Above this doorway is a large panel 
bearing the date, 1608, the initials of John Haliday and 
his wife Helen Oliphant, their arms and a couple of 
mottoes. Standing on a hill overlooking the Pow Burn, 




Tullibole Castle 



about a mile or so to the south of Tullibole Castle, is 
the older castle of Aldie. Erected probably before 1500, 
the keep has the usual defensive features. The building 
added on the south side is later. 

Of the many fine mansions in the shire it is possible 
here to mention only two. Kinross House was built by 

D. c. 9 



130 KINROSS-SHIRE 

the celebrated architect Sir William Bruce in 1685. 
It is an imposing building and was so greatly admired 
that it became the model for many later erections through- 
out the country. Sir Robert Sibbald, in whose lifetime 
the house was built, writes of it as "a stately building... 
which for situation, contrivance, prospects, avenues, 
courts, gardens, gravel-walks and terraces, and all hortu- 
lane ornaments, parks and planting, is surpassed by few 
in this country." William Adam, a pupil of Sir William 
Bruce, built for himself the mansion of Blairadam in the 
south of the county. Apart from its architectural features, 
Blairadam House is also of interest as being the place 
where Sir Walter Scott and the other members of the 
Blairadam Club foregathered to spend the week-ends 
with their host, the grandson of Bi^uce's pupil. 

There is little of interest in the ecclesiastical archi- 
tecture of the county. The small ruin remaining on St 
Serf's Island is scarcely worth the trouble of a visit, and 
no vestige remains either of the priory of Portmoak or of 
the hospital at Scotlandwell. With the exception of 
Orwell church, the existing parish churches were all 
built during the first 40 years of the nineteenth century 
and are mostly Gothic in style. Orwell is only an 
apparent exception, for, though the building at Milnathort 
was erected in 1729, it was entirely renovated at a later 
date. In the old burial-ground of Tullibole, just to the 
south of the foundations of the church demolished in 
1729, there lay till recently a sculptured stone, now 
in the Antiquarian Museum, Edinburgh. Over four 
feet high, about a foot and a half broad, it consists of 



ARCHITECTURE 



131 



close-grained freestone, and is sculptured on both sides 
and on the edges. One side has a man on foot ; another 
on horseback with hound and other beast ; two men 




Sculptured Stone found at Tullibole 



wrestling ; two serpents with looped tails, face to face. 
The other side had an elaborately ornamented cross, 
which is now much obliterated. 

9—2 



132 KINROSS-SHIRE 

13. Distribution of Population. Com= 
munications. 

Kinross-shire has the srhallest, though not the least 
dense, population in Scotland. The total population 
n 191 1 was 7528 persons, of whom one-third resided 
n the only burgh in the county, Kinross. Farming 




Curling on Loch Leven 

being the only important industry, the population is 
scattered in small hamlets and farmsteadings throughout 
the plain. Such a district needs a centre where farm 
produce can be marketed and where the farmers can 
purchase commodities. This market town will arise 
at the point most conveniently accessible for the whole 
district. In the case of Kinross-shire, the most convenient 



POPULATION COMMUNICATIONS 133 

situation would naturally be near the centre of the basin, 
where, in fact, we do find the town of Kinross. The 
town appears to owe its size and importance to three 
chief factors : (i) it is the natural centre and, therefore, 
the market town of the whole shire ; (2) it is on the Great 
North Road, roughly about half-way between Edinburgh 
and Perth, and was an important stopping-place in the 
old coaching days ; (3) it is on the shore of Loch Leven 
and has become a centre for skaters and curlers in the 
winter and for anglers in the fishing season. In past 
ages its position at the point nearest the Castle Island 
lent it additional importance. The only other urban 
centre is Milnathort. It, too, is situated on the Great 
North Road, but at the point of conjunction of roads 
from Cupar, Leslie, and Dollar. 

Another result of the almost exclusive devotion to 
farming is that the population keeps steadily at a fairly 
constant figure and shows little signs of increase. Allowing 
for the alteration of boundaries, the number of inhabitants 
is now but 5-7 °/^ above the number in 1801, a rate of 
growth which may be contrasted with the 153*4 7o 
increase of the population of Clackmannan, or the 
195-9 °l^ increase of the population of the whole ot 
Scotland since the same date. The density of population 
per square mile in the various parishes is as follows : 
Kinross, 273 for the whole parish, 43 for the extra 
burghal portion only ; Orwell, 96 ; Portmoak, 55 ; 
Cleish, 54 ; Fossoway, 43. 

As regards railway communication, Kinross is well 
served. The North British Railway from the Forth 



134 



KINROSS-SHIRE 



Bridge enters the county between Benarty and the 
Cleish Hills and runs north to Kinross, where it is joined 
by the Devon valley branch from Alloa. Proceeding 




Sketch-map of Kinross-shire, showing the influence of the 
physical features on the lines of communication 

round the north-west end of Loch Leven, a line diverges 
at Mawcarse Junction to pass down the Eden valley, 
while the main line continues northwards through 
Glen Farg to Perth. 



ROLL OF HONOUR 135 

14. Roll of Honour. 

Of famous names in the history of Kinross-shire 
we have already mentioned St Serf; Mary Queen of 
Scots ; her custodian, Sir William Douglas, who became 
the seventh Earl of Morton ; and the founder of the 
Secession Church, Thomas Erskine, who as minister of 
Portmoak drew hearers from far and near. 

In the seventeenth century and the eighteenth, the 
county produced a succession of famous architects. 
William Bruce, Monk's messenger to negotiate with 
Charles II in Holland, became a baronet in 1668, 
King's Surveyor and Master of Works in 1671, and 
later hereditary sheriff of Kinross. Besides his own house 
of Kinross, he restored Holyrood for the king, built 
Harden House in Teviotdale, and the Merchants' Hall 
at Glasgow, and designed Hopetoun House in Linlithgow. 
On Sir William's death at a very great age in 17 10, 
his pupil, William Adam, a native of Kinross, became 
Surveyor of the King's Works in Scotland, and, in later 
life, published Vitruvius Scotlcus, a selection of his designs 
together with those of his contemporaries. He died in 1 748 
and his two sons, Robert and James, removed to London 
and became two of the most famous British architects of 
the eighteenth century. These two brothers designed 
the Adelphi buildings in London ; a fact which accounts 

for the name. 

Another noted name of the eighteenth century is 
that of Michael Bruce, born at Kinnesswood in 1746. 
The son of a weaver, he studied at Edinburgh University, 



136 



KINROSS-SHIRE 



intending to enter the ministry of the Secession Church. 
He was schoolmaster at Gairney Bridge, and then in 
Clackmannanshire at Forest Mill. Bruce was in ill-health 
and rapidly grew worse in his unwholesome surroundings. 




Sir William Bruce 



The floor of the schoolroom was the bare earth, which in 
rainy weather degenerated into a quagmire of wet mud ; 
and, though the parents of his scholars did their best by 
laying a row of stones from the door to the master's desk. 



ROLL OF HONOUR 



137 



Michael's health completely broke down and he returned 
home to Kinnesswood to die of consumption at the age 
of 21. Bruce was a poet. His longest poem is Lochleven^ 
the following extract from which, though in the conven- 
tional eighteenth-century style, is vividly descriptive of the 
actual scene : 




Michael Bruce's Cottage at Kinnesswood 

" Between two mountains, whose o'erwhehning tops, 
In their swift course, arrest the bellying- clouds, 
A pleasant valley lies. Upon the fourth, 
A narrow op'ning parts the craggy hills. 
Through which the lake, that beautifies the vale. 
Pours out its ample waters. Spreading on, 
And wid'ning by degrees, it stretches north 
To the high Ochil, from whose snowy top 
The streams that feed the lake flow thund'ring down. 

9—5 



138 KINROSS-SHIRE 

Better known are Bruce's paraphrases from scripture, 
and his short lyrics. A collection of his works was 
published in 1770 by Rev. John Logan, a former fellow- 
student, who, however, reserved several poems to issue 
later in a volume of his own. This makes it doubtful if 
the Ode to the Cuckoo^ a really fine poem, is Bruce's or 
not. 

A much earlier writer is Andrew of Wyntoun, born 
about 1350. A Canon Regular of St Andrews, he was 
made Prior of the Monastery on St Serf's Inch. There 
he compiled his Orygynale Cronykil — original in the sense 
of beginning at the "origin," the creation of the world. 
It is only in the Scottish parts from Malcolm Canmore 
that Wyntoun is historically of much value. His chronicle 
is in the octo-syllabic metre, but as poetry it is worthless. 
Wyntoun gives us the original version of Macbeth's 
interview with the weird sisters, which as embellished by 
Hector Boece and repeated by Holinshed forms the 
groundwork of Shakespeare's Macbeth. 



15. THE CHIEF TOWNS AND VILLAGES 
OF KINROSS-SHIRE. 

(The figures in brackets after each name give the population in 
191 1, and those at the end of each section are references 
to pages in the text.) 

Cleish on the Gairney Water, is the only village of any size 
in the parish of Cleish. The wonderful adventures of Squire 
Meldrum of Cleish are told by Sir David Lyndsay. (p. 128.) 

Crook of Devon, a village situated where the Devon 
changes the direction of its course from south-east to south-west. 
Formerly a burgh of barony and a place of some note for its 
cattle fairs, it now derives a slight importance from its mills, and 
its position as a convenient stopping place for visitors to the 
picturesque river defile, (pp. 25, 29, 128.) 

Kinnesswood, a village at the western foot of the Bishop 
Hill. Like the other villages (e.g. Easter and Wester Balgedie) 
of Portmoak parish, it has probably grown from a fishing settle- 
ment ; but, with the lowering of the level of the loch, it is now 
.some distance from the actual shore. Till the emigration of the 
Birrell family it had been long famous for the manufacture of 
vellum and parchment. Portmoak was the birthplace of John 
Douglas, first " tulchan " Archbishop of St Andrews, (pp. 119, 
I35-) 

Kinross (2618), created a burgh of barony by the Regent 
Morton, and now the only police burgh in the county, is 




Rumbling Bridge 



CHIEF TOWNS AND VILLAGES 141 

the county town. It is also the official headquarters of the 
Scottish Amateur Skating Association and the National Angling 
Association, (pp. 84, 96, 97, no, 112, 113, 132, 134.) 

Milnathort (1178), in Orwell parish, a market town, one 
and a half miles north of Kinross, (pp. 84, 96, 109, 112, 133.) 

Rumbling Bridge is a famous centre for visitors to the 
gorges and falls of the Devon river, here spanned by two bridges — 
the older dating from 17 13, the modern not yet a century old. 
The defile at this spot is about 120 feet deep. Above the bridges 
is the Devil's Mill, below are the falls of the Caldron Linn. 

Scotlandwell, an ancient village in Portmoak parish at 
the southern foot of the Bishop Hill. The name was taken from 
the " F'ontes Scotiae," famous springs, one of which, now 
protected by a wooden structure, rises just to the west of the 
main street. In 1238 William Malvoisin, Bishop of St Andrews, 
founded a hospital for the Mathurin or Red Friars, on a site now 
marked by the old burial-ground at the south-east extremity of 
the village, (pp. 98, 105, 130.) 



142 



DIAGRAMS 



Scotland 

29,798 square miles 
(excluding water) 



Clackmannan & Kinross 



Fig. I. Comparative areas of the counties of Clackmannan 
(54 sq. miles) and Kinross (58 sq. miles) and all Scotland 



Scotland 

4,759,455 



Clackmannan 
Kinrossrj ^ 



Fig. 2. Comparison in Population of Clackmannanshire 
(31,121) and Kinross-shire (7528) and all Scotland 



Clackmannanshire 571 Scotland 157 Kinross-shire 92 

Fig. 3. Comparative Density of Population to the 
square mile in 191 1 

{Each dot represents ten persons) 



DIAGRAMS 



143 



35.000 
30.000 
25,000 
20,000 
15,000 
10,000 


g<s||ci-|||-|||s 


35,000 




















y 
















c\^^ 


f 


/ 




25,000 
20,000 
15,000 
10,000 










/ 




/ 


i^ 














/ 


f 














^ 






















^ 












^ 


{nro 


5S 


^ 




5,000 








5,000 

























Fig. 4. Graph showing Growth of Population in the 
counties of Clackmannan and Kinross since 1801 




Fig. 5. Proportionate area under Corn Crops compared 
with that of other cultivated land in the counties of 
Clackmannan and Kinross in 1912 



144 



DIAGRAMS 



Rye I20 acres 




Fig. 6. Proportionate area of chief Cereals in the 
counties of Clackmannan and Kinross in 1912 




r Crops & Bare Fallow 
2,117 acres 



^'^'■es 



Fig. 7. 



Proportionate areas of land in the counties 
of Clackmannan and Kinross in 1912 



DIAGRAMS 



145 




Fig. 8. Proportionate numbers of Live Stock in the 
counties of Clackmannan and Kinross in 1912 



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Aberdeenshire. By A. Mackie, M.A. 
Argyll and Bute. By P. Macnair 
Ayrshire. By John Foster, M. A. 
Dumfriesshire. By the Rev. J. K. 

Hewison, D.D. 
Fifeshire. ByE. S.Valentine, M.A. 
Forfarshire. By E. S. Valentine 
Lanarkshire. By F. Mort, M.A , 

B.Sc, F.G.S. 



Linlithgowshire. By T. S. Muir, 

F.R.S. G.S. 
Midlothian. By A. McCallum, 

M.A., LL.B, 
Peebles and Selkirk. By G. C. 

Pringle, M.A. 
Perthshire. By Peter Macnair 
Renfrewshire. By F. Mort 



Volumes on the remaining counties of England, Scotland and Wales, are 
in an active state of preparation. Arrangements have also been made for a 
series of Irish Geographies. 



PROVINCIAL GEOGRAPHIES OF INDIA 

General Editor: Sir T. H. Holland, K.C.I.E., D.Sc, F.R.S. 
The Madras Presidency, with Mysore, Coorg and the 

Associated States. By Edgar Thurston, CLE. Sometime Super- 
intendent of the Madras Government Museum. Crown 8vo. \\ith roo 
illustrations, maps, and diagrams. 3^- net. [.Now ready 

Bengal and Orissa. Bv L. S. S. O'Malley, I.C.S. 

° ' [In the press 

The Paniab, N. W. Frontier Province and Kashmir. 

By Sir J. McC Douie, K.C.S.L Un the press 



An Atlas of Commercial Geography. Compiled by 

Fawcett Allen, Assistant Map-Curator to the Royal Geographical 
Society. With an introduction by D. A. Jones, Assistant Librarian to 
the Royal Geographical Society. Demy 4to contaimng 48 maps and an 
index, is. dd. net. 
This work, containing a series of maps illustrating the elementary facts of 
economic geography, falls into two broad divisions; the first containing maps 
presenting facts on a world-scale, on which the teachmg of principles may be 
based; the second giving a consistent series of maps for each continent, 
sufficiently detailed to be of use for regional study. In the Introduction the 
i6 world-maps are treated in detail, in order to indicate a logical method ot 
study by linking facts together in a natural order and thus building up a com- 
posite picture. 

Elementary Commercial Geography. By H. R- Mill, 

D.Sc. Revised by Fawcett Allen. Extra fcap. 8vo. New edition, 
revised to 1913- i-^- ^d. net. 

Map Projections. By Arthur R. Hinks, M.A., F.R.S. 

Demy 8vo. With frontispiece and 19 text figures. 5 J. net. 

Maps and Survey. By the same author. Demy 8vo. With 

24 plates. 6j-. net. 

A Geography of the British Empire. By W. L. Bunting, 

M.A , Head of the Geography Department, Royal Naval College, 

Osborne, and H. L. Collen, M.A., Assistant Master at the Royal 

Naval College, Osborne. With maps, diagrams and 29 illustrations. 

35. dd. 

This book is intended for the use of higher classes in Preparatory and 

lower classes in Public Schools. Though the ground covered is limited the 

authors have followed mainly the lines laid down in the Syllabus adopted by 

the Headmasters' Conference of 19 10. 

Phvsical Geography for South African Schools. By 

ALEX L. D^^^^ Crown 8vo. With 66 illustrations 

and a Physical Map of South Africa (folding). 4^- 6^- net. 

[P.T.O. 



CAMBRIDGE GEOGRAPHICAL SERIES 

General Editor : F. H. H. Guillemard, M.D. 
The Geography of Disease. By Frank G. Clemow, M.D. 

Edin., D.P.H. Camb. With 12 maps and charts. Crown 8vo. 15J. 
' ' The book is well written, and contains a great deal of very interesting 
matter ; it thoroughly deserves the attention of the medical profession and of 
those interested in public-health administration." — Athenaeum 

A History of Geographical Discovery in the Seven- 
teenth and Eighteenth Centuries. By E. Heawood, M.A., Librarian 
to the Royal Geographical Society. Crown 8vo. With 59 illustrations. 
I2J. dd. net. 
" Mr Heawood writes brilliantly and with authority. Seldom can the 

misused word 'fascinating' be applied to a book with equal justice. 

Invaluable as history, with a wealth of excellent maps and plans, it will prove 

for the imaginative reader the equal of the greatest romances of literature." — 

Westminster Gazette 

Ethnology. By A. H. Keane, F.R.G.S. With numerous 
illustrations. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 10s. 6d. 

Man^ Past and Present. By A. H. Keane, F.R.G.S. 

Crown 8vo. With 15 illustrations. 12s. 
'' It is a thoroughly good book, clear, compact, up to date, and packed 
with facts." — Saturday Revietv 

The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate^ Mesopotamia, 

Persia and Central Asia, from the Moslem conquest to the time of 
Timur. By Guy le Strange. Crown 8vo. With 10 maps. 15^. 
"This very serviceable, sound, and thorough piece of work." — English 
Historical Review 

A Geographical History of Mammals. By R. Lydekker, 

B.A., F.R.S. Crown 8vo. With Illustrations and a Map. loj-. 6d. 
" Mr Lydekker's volume forms a valuable contribution to the ' Cambridge 
Geographical Series,' and the general editor has done wisely in securing such 
a well-written essay on this branch of his subject from a palaeontological point 

of view Altogether, it contains a large mass of information reduced into a 

small compass, and will meet, we are sure, with generous appreciation from all 
students of distribution." — Nature 

Outlines of Military Geography. By T. Miller Maguire, 

LL.D. Crown 8vo. With 27 maps and illustrations, ioj". dd. 
"We can strongly recommend Dr Maguire's excellent treatise to our readers 
of all callings — sailor, soldier, or civilian." — Pall Mall Gazette 

A History of Ancient Geography. By the Rev. H. F. 

TozER, M.A. Crown 8vo. With 10 Maps. ioj. 6d. 
" The latest volume of the Cambridge Geographical Series goes far to fill a 
serious gap in geographical literature. The need for a concise and interesting 
history of Geography in English has often been expressed, and now so far as 
the period covered by his work is concerned, Mr Tozer has earned the thanks 
of all concerned in geographical education." — Geographical Journal 



A- 



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